The Power of Knowledge
by Lepanto
Summary: AU, Harry and Naruto are by chance put together as Pen Pals, becoming the first friends either ever had. What impact will this have on the respective worlds. No slash
1. 1 The Power of Friendship

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

Chapter1.

The Power of Friendship

Henry James Potter's life was different from most people in Briton. Like most seven year olds he knew the insides of the cupboard under the stairs better than any room in the house. Unlike most seven year olds though it was not because this was his favorite hiding spot, but rather because this was his bedroom, living room, and sometimes dining room all rolled into one. Ever since he could remember the thin boy with the messy dark brown hair and green eyes who stood in his cousin's hand-me-downs had lived in the cupboard, this was where he would take his meals, do his homework, and sleep at night. Five days a week he would be woken up at 05:30 by his alarm clock, quickly bathe and get dressed before cooking breakfast for his "family", then after doing the dishes he would gather up his books and walk to school while his cousin watched the telly (before he in turn was driven in by his mother). His time at school was spent learning all he could, and avoiding being bullied by his cousin's gang, before running home and cooking supper for the "family". On the weekends when everyone else was relaxing, maybe watching the game on the telly or going for walks in the park, he could be found cleaning the house, working in the garden, or out doing the shopping for the next week's meals.

On the whole it was a very lonely existence for Henry. He had no friends at school (as everyone realized quickly that being friends with Harry Potter was the quickest way to being found by a teacher with a black eye, and bruises all over your body courtesy of his cousin and his gang). Some would have thought that the teachers would have seen what was going on and would have taken the boy under their wing, but the teachers were also not inclined to keep an eye on him, due to the odd pranks that he would seem to pull (like the time he somehow climbed on top of the school roof, this caused them no end of trouble as the school was investigated to discover how such an incident could occur) and because Harry was told he was not allowed to outperform his cousin, he always seemed to be one of the worst students in the class. This meant that while Harry's teachers concentrated on the other students (especially Dudley, who would only do any work if a teacher stood over him and forced him to do it) it was up to Harry to figure out everything for himself. It did have some benefits though, it was how he learned his name was actually Henry, he had seen it on his file the first time he had been summoned to the headmaster's office after one of his "pranks". No one called him that though, he was referred to as Harry, or at home, Hey You, or some other name.

There was one ray of joy in Henry's life. Last year every student in the class was given a pen pal from another country. Mrs. Fayton had called the class to attention at the beginning of the day saying "Children, today you are going to learn how to write a letter. Letter writing is a very important skill. To help you with this you are all going to be issued the address of another child in a foreign country."

"But Miss, how are we going to be able to understand them if they are from another country?"

"Well remember class this is not the only part of the world that speaks English. Now some of you will be given the addresses of people in non English speaking countries, I know Toby" she said looking at a child in the second row in a dark blue shirt and glasses "that your parents have taught you French, so if you want your friend can come from France. Would that be alright?"

"Yes miss, that would be great." Toby said, he liked to project the image of being the class "brain", and would do anything that set him apart from the rest of the group. Dudley, who saw the whole process as useless, was assigned a boy in America, wrote a single letter that was basically dictated by Mrs. Fayton, before never thinking about the project again. When it came to Harry though there was only one address left. "Here you go Potter, a boy your age in Japan, Uzumaki Naruto."

"Mrs. Fayton, I don't speak Japanese."

"Well this was the last name given from the pen pal service and you don't have to send anymore after the first one if you don't want to. But you do need to write this Uzumaki at least one letter."

* * *

Uzumaki Naruto sat in his apartment in Konoha, waiting on the mail. A little over a year ago Old Man Sarutobi had changed Naruto's life for ever. Since Naruto had first been forced to move out of the Orphanage he had met with the Old Man once a week for a general check up. On that day they had met in his office rather than at a restaurant in the village.

"Hey Ojii-san what is wrong with Ichiraku's?" Naruto asked as he walked into the Hokage's office.

"Nothing is wrong with Ichiraku's and we will go to lunch in a little while Naruto, but first I wanted to meet with you here. So Naruto how has your week been?"

"Eh, not too bad, I got most of my homework done, although I can't wait to leave these classes behind when I start at the Ninja Academy, I also helped Teuchi by testing his new ramen flavor, and I discovered a great hiding spot on the west side of town... did you hear about the prank I played on that dango shop?"

"Yes, why did you decide that they needed to have the entire place painted bright pink with green dots?"

"Some baka claimed that their food was better than Ichiraku's! It was completely justified."

Sarutobi tried his best to keep a straight face upon hearing this, covering up a laugh behind a cough. "Naruto I wanted to talk to you about something important."

"What Ojii-san?"

"Naruto do you know what lies outside Konoha?"

"eeeh...there is the forest? The rest of Fire country?" Naruto answered carefully.

"Correct Naruto" Sarutobi replied smiling slightly, "now what is beyond Fire country?"

"The rest of the Elemental countries. Wow Ojii-san I heard that the mind was the first thing to go, but wow!"

"Very clever Naruto" Sarutobi replied with a chuckle, "now pay attention, what we are about to discuss is an 'S' class secret between the two of us. The only people who know what I am about to tell you are the Daimyos, most of the other Hokages and a few select people. You must not mention it to anyone else, is that understood? Even to those who you think might already know."

For the first time today Naruto stopped moving completely. He was always an energetic boy and no one had ever seen him when he was not at least fidgeting with something, in fact all through the discussion Naruto had been rocking back and forth on his heels and fiddling with his hands, but now a look of complete seriousness and quiet had descended upon him.

"Hai Hokage-sama, I will not tell anyone."

"Gaki! Don't call me that Naruto, I will think you have been possessed by an evil spirit." barked Sarutobi with a smile.

"Hai Ojii-san, so what's up?"

"Naruto, what is outside of the Elemental countries?"

"Outside the Elemental countries? Nothing, maybe some dessert or just water."

"Wrong Naruto, outside the Elemental countries there is much more. The Elemental countries are a hidden group of countries inside the Empire of Japan. The rest of Japan for the most part does not know we even exist in the same way that the average person who lives here does not know much about the empire..."

"WHAT" cried Naruto, interrupting the old man in the middle of his explanation, "are you kidding me Ojii-san? That doesn't make sense."

"I can assure you Naruto this is the truth. Who do you think put the Daimyos in charge? It was the emperor. Now Naruto, I am telling you this because we keep ourselves strictly separated from the rest of Japan for a reason. We can do things that most other Japanese can't, and those that can we identify early and try to bring them here. We are even stricter about keeping ourselves separate from the rest of the world outside of the Empire. Now Naruto pay attention. I am telling you this for a specific reason. Many years ago I was called to spend some time doing missions for the Emperor outside of the Elemental countries. On these missions I became friends with a man who I still keep in contact with today. He suggested something that I think you might enjoy, a way, if you want, to possibly become friends with someone your age?"

"I do not understand Ojii-san. I would like some friends my age, but you know the parents in this village will not allow their children to play with me for some reason, and I don't see how keeping a secret from them will help me."

"Correct Naruto, but how would you like to be friends with someone from outside the Elemental countries?"

"How can I become friends with someone when I may never get to meet them?"

"My friend told me of this messaging service that connects children with other children in different countries. In this way people can learn from others who grew up with different customs, and be exposed to new ideas. I can arrange it so that you can be put in touch with another child and the two of you can write letters back and forth. A child whose parents do not already dislike you, and knows nothing about you."

If Naruto was shocked by the way this conversation had started, he was almost catatonic after that statement. A friend, a real friend, someone who would not call him demon or monster, and of his own age. It took the boy a few minutes to process the information, then suddenly, like a dam being bursed Naruto ran up and hugged the Hokage. "Now be careful Naruto" Sarutobi said "remember that who ever you are writing to will not know a lot about your life and there are certain things that you cannot tell him. There are certain secrets that you must not divulge. Number 1, you cannot tell him about any Ninja training you go through or see except Taijutsu. Number 2, you cannot tell him about the different elemental countries… Naruto pay attention" by this time Naruto so happy over the news had started jumping for joy and a glazed look had passed over his eyes.

"Sure sure Ojii-San, anything you say, when do you think I can start sending these messages to the other kid?"

"Oh it might only be a month but it could be a lot longer, and be prepared the person may not know any Japanese, and the first child that responds may not keep up writing, it may take awhile before you develop a friend."

"No Japanese? Then how will we be able to understand each other? And why would a kid not continue messaging?" the boy asked stopping in his tracks, a funk visibly descending over him.

"Well at first I will translate the letters for you but remember the system was invented to introduce children, who came from different countries, to each other, and most of those countries do not speak Japanese, but eventually, you both might have to learn each others language. He will have to learn our language, and hopefully as he is doing it he can teach you some of his. There are very few experts in the elemental countries on these foreign tongues, learning another language will be a useful skill even if you won't use it very often. Remember Naruto, rarely do you come across such a thing as useless knowledge."

"Hai Ojii-san." Naruto replied dutifully as understanding about the difficulty of the task really sank in.

* * *

3 months later Naruto received his first letter from Harry, and the Hokage sent back the pre-arranged message letting him know about the language barriers. Harry sat in his cupboard as he finished the letter 'well now, what am I going to do? How do I go about learning Japanese?' The enormousness of the task was daunting, until Harry turned to the one friend he had, 'Looks like this is a job for The Library!'

Because none of the teachers would spend any time with Harry and his grades always had to be so appalling the only way Harry ever learned anything was at the local library. He knew that one day he would leave his "family" and the only way to do that would be if he could survive on his own, knowledge is power and Harry was determined to use that power to achieve his freedom. Every few days after school let out, before going home to cook supper, Harry would take a trip to the library and check out a few books, then at night, after he had been sent back to the cupboard after dinner, he would stay up reading and studying from them. Thanks to his efforts, he was actually a year or two ahead of the other students in Mrs. Fayton's class.

The next day after class Henry walked into the library, smiling at the librarian sitting behind the desk "Miss Goosen, how wonderful to see you again."

"Why thank you Harry, and how are you doing today?"

"Oh just fine Miss" said Henry, happy to be back in the one place where no one ignored him and looked down on him, "But I am going to need you help. Do we have any books on learning to write Japanese, and an English to Japanese dictionary?"

"We might do, what do you need them for?"

"I was assigned a Pen Pal from Japan in school, and he doesn't speak a word of English and apparently the village he lives in doesn't have the resources to teach him."

"Well let me have a look" she said as she starts to flip through a box containing a portion of the library's card catalogue.

"Alright well it seems like we have some books that might work out. If you go back to the foreign language section, you can find the dictionary and here is a list of books on learning Japanese." With that Harry took the list of books and walked back into the library. After looking through shelves and flipping through books for 30 minutes Harry finally found the books he thought he would need, checked them out of the library and returned home to cook the Shepherd's Pie that he was serving that night. later that evening while everyone else was watching a rerun of the Professionals he started studying the books he had borrowed, and got to work on his first letter. The next thing Harry new it was 11:00 at night and he had just finished writing a very short letter (with possibly horrible grammar), giving this Naruto a short overview of his life.

* * *

"Ojii-san, I got a letter" Naruto shouted bursting into the Hokage's office, temporarily saving him from the mounds of paperwork that had been piling up.

"Well Naruto that is great! What does young Harry say?"

"I am not sure, I cannot read what he has written, can you understand it?"

The Hokage looked at the letter for a few minutes before it dawned on him,

"Naruto, remember that the boy does not know Japanese, he has put these words together with very little understanding of how to do it. Leave the letter with me I will translate it for you, come back tomorrow and I will have it ready for you."

"Thank you Ojii-san" Naruto then stood for a few minutes looking awkwardly at the Hokage before Sarutobi finally had enough.

"Was there something else Naruto?"

"Hai. What is this boy's name?"

"I believe it is pronounced Hen-ry."

"Hen-ry! Thank you Ojii-san" with that Naruto bolted out of the office to go and see what he could find, repeating Harry's name every few seconds.

Over the next few months the two started to exchange letters. Every time Harry sent a letter he would receive a reply from Naruto as well as a corrected version of his original from Sarutobi. In this way Harry learned to read and write Japanese. He also developed his first true friend. Slowly over the course of months the boys started opening up to each other. Both were orphans and new about living around people who did not like them. The idea that there was someone out there that would listen to them, and could understand at least a little bit the things they were going through gave them hope for the future, and strength not to give up on particularly bad days.

"Ojii-san. I need your advice" Naruto said as he walked into the Hokage's office holding a letter in one hand, and a look of determination on his face.

"what is the problem Naruto" the Old man sighed, today had not been a good day so far, He had just left a council meeting where it seemed like he had to fight tooth and nail to get anything done, and once again Danzo had been pushing to be given control of Naruto, while the rest of the village just wanted him cast out not wanting to have to deal with the "Monster". How that had happened when they were meant to be meeting to discuss the sewage problem was beyond Sarutobi.

"Harry is having trouble! His cousin keeps on attacking him."

"That is unfortunate, but there isn't much I can do about it from here."

"Well the thing is, his school is really weird, I don't understand what they are teaching there, it seems no one has ever taught him how to fight"

"Naruto, not everyone is enrolled in a Ninja Academy."

"But there must be something we can do! Can't we send him a Taijutsu scroll or something?"

"Naruto, we cannot just sent scrolls out into the world, many of the Taijutsu styles practiced in this village are clan or village secrets. They cannot be shared with outsiders!"

"But you yourself said that he lives far outside of the elemental countries, there is no way that any scroll we share with him could be shared with the other villages. It would be safe. I am not asking for you to send him the Hyuuga's style, just a style."

It was times like this that the Hokage could not understand why someone would call Naruto a monster. Here was a boy with the Will of Fire, willing to argue with the Hokage in order to help out a friend.

"Alright Naruto, let me think on this you will have your answer tomorrow. Meet me at the Ramen stand at lunch time and I will give you my answer."

"Yosh, thank you Ojii-san" shouted Naruto as he jumped into the air with one fist raised triumphantly.

The next day Naruto was sitting at Ichiraku's counter talking to Teuchi as Hiruzen Sarutobi showed up. "Ah, a bowl of pork ramen please Teuchi, and a bowl of the miso for Naruto."

"Hey Ojii-san, how has your day been?"

"Fine Naruto, pass the chopsticks."

"So what did you decide for Harry?"

"I am going to allow you to send him a copy of a Taijutsu scroll, but you must make sure that the copy you send does not contain any portions that require weapons, or the use of Chakra. His people do not seem understand Chakra and from what I understand they have a hard time getting weapons, in fact you had better bring the copy to me when you have finished making it so I can check it."

"That/s going to be a lot of work, but I'll do it. Which style should I start copying?"

"That is up to you, I will allow you access to the library's Taijutsu scrolls and you will have to select the style that you think will work best for your friend."

"But Ojii-san…There are dozens of different styles, how will I know which one to copy?"

"Well I guess you will just have to study them and figure that out!"

With that the Old Man dived into the waiting bowl of ramen, chuckling to himself.

The first thing Naruto noticed as he stepped into the Library, was how few people were in it. Growing up the way he had it had become his system for rating different businesses, and twenty seconds in, he thought have found a new favourite. It wasn't perfect, As soon as he walked in he could feel the librarian's eyes on him, bu since this library was the Ninja library they weren't going to mess with him too bad.

After being pointed in the direction of the Taijutsu scrolls he was left alone and for the next 3 months Naruto poured over every scroll on Taijutsu in the Konoha library, carefully examining every style, weighing the pros and cons of each one. He knew from the letters that Harry was thin, and very agile, relying up until now on his speed and reflexes to avoid any major damage from his cousin. Naruto took careful notes not wanting to let his only friend down, and found several styles that would work well for him, and a couple that he set aside to learn for himself, a neccessary action, once he realized that every time his stance had been corrected at the academy they had apparently done it wrong.

Almost 4 months after first approaching the Hokage with his problem, Naruto walked into his office, "Hey Ojii-san, I'm finished" he shouted throwing the scroll at the old man.

"Well, let's see how you did" carefully opening the scroll Sarutobi begins to examine it, "I am glad to see that your handwriting has improved Naruto…This is an odd style to pick, are you sure you have the right one?"

"Hai, I think so, he will at least now have a fighting chance."

"Congratulations Naruto, I think you have done a fine job here, you should be proud of yourself, I will make sure this gets sent off right away."

* * *

A week and a half later Harry was washing the breakfast dishes and preparing to go to school when there was a knock at the door.

"Oi freak, answer the door" Dudley shouted as he squirted ketchup onto his plate already covered in bacon, eggs, beans, and toast. Harry dutifully put down the frying pan, and went to see who was stopping by this early, to discover the post man holding two packages.

"Delivery for ya' young Harry."

"Thank you Sam, do I need to sign anything?"

"No I just wanted to let you know they were here. Well I will be off still got some work to do."

"Bye Sam" with that Harry quickly gathered up the mail and started walking inside. Glancing at one of the packages Harry saw it was in fact addressed to him, and quickly threw it into this cupboard before his uncle came around the corner.

"What was all that about boy?" His uncle asked with a snarl on his face.

"Just the postman, you received a package Uncle Vernon."

"Then stop lazing about and give it here, I don't have all day" the man said, followed it up with a quick cuff to the back of Harry's head. Harry dutifully handed him the package, put the rest of the post on the kitchen table and hurried off to school.

All that day only one thought was running through Harry's mind 'What is in that package? What could Naruto have sent me?… Do I have to send him a package now? What could I possibly send him?" The second school let out Harry ran all the way home, not even bothering to go the back way to avoid Mrs. Figg and all her cats in his mad dash to get back to No. 4 Privet Drive. Taking a minute just outside the front door he regained his composure before quietly walking in. No one seemed to notice his presence (although with how loud Dudley had the telly turned up that was hardly a surprise) as he quietly made his way into his cupboard. Pausing for a moment to jamb his towel along the bottom of the door to block out any light from escaping, Harry quickly tore off the brown raping paper and opened the box to reveal, what could only be described as a scroll. The outside of it was a bright orange with two thin black line running around it each set one third of the down the scroll, and two wooden knobs sticking out at either end, and a piece of string tying it closed. 'A scroll? What the…Who sends a scroll? …Is this meant to be decorative, or am I supposed to open it?' Taking a risk Harry pulled on the string. Opening the scroll slowly, being careful not to tear it, he was amazed to see it was filled with diagrams of people in different poses and carefully laid out instructions. "_Harry, I did not like the idea of someone hurting my friend, so please study this carefully, it may protect you."_ Harry read the first sentence again carefully before glancing at the rest of the scroll, 'Wow! This must be one of those martial arts, like the ones Dudley is always talking about….I wonder if this will actually work?'

Luckily Harry already had the perfect place to practice. It started two years ago when he discovered the need of a private place where he could rant without being heard. While generally seen by all as a quiet boy there were times when the need to shout at the universe about the injustices of the world just grew too much. The clearing in the woods was near enough to No.4 that he could get home before he was missed, yet inaccessible enough to grant him the privacy he required. The day after the package arrived was a Saturday, and so his weekend was spent doing all the chores that were expected of him, but soon enough Monday rolled around, and The second classes were over Harry was off like a rocket, normally he would wait around until all the other children were gone so that no one would notice him, and maybe report his activities to his aunt, but today he was in a rush to get started.


	2. Chapter 2 Training

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

* * *

Chapter 2: Training

"Ha! take that, and that, and don't think I forgot about you" Naruto shouted as he sent a Shuriken flying towards his intended target. Naruto was working out in one of Konoha's training fields, trying to develop his skills in one of the several Taijutsu styles he had copied from the library. Taking a break Naruto started rounding up the kunai and shuriken that lay scattered about, taking an extra second to dig the shuriken out of the block of wood that only seconds ago had represented his enemy, in this case an Iwa nin, after all just because you are training doesn't mean it couldn't be fun, so Naruto had been replaying a battle from the Third Great Shinobi War. 'Darn, still need to work on my accuracy, that hit should have been dead center, not over here on the left' Naruto thought as he examined where the shuriken had struck. Suddenly his watch beeped letting him know that he was going to be late for school.

Naruto hit the classroom door hard just as the bell sounded causing him to trip and crash into several desks. "Uzumaki can you for once not start off a class without causing trouble" the instructor snarled.

"Sorry Taro-sensei, it was an accident."

"It always seems to be with you Uzumaki. This is the 4th time you have been late since the year started and that was only 2 weeks ago. If you cause any more disturbance in this class today you will regret it, now take a seat." Barked Taro before continuing to call the class to order, "Now as I was saying before we were all interrupted, today we have a new instructor with us. This is Umino Iruka, he is going to be taking over teaching some classes next year and so will be shadowing me for the rest of this one. Everyone say Hello Iruka-sensei"

"Hello Iruka-sensei" called out the class."

"Hey kids, I know we are going to have a great year."

"Alright class this morning we are going to work on Taijutsu, then we shall go on to discuss the importance of Chakra Control, and finally we shall end the day with a lesson on the history of Konoha. So everyone outside for Taijutsu training."

The first part of the class went well. Naruto was, at least in Taijutsu if nothing else, one of the better students of those who were not part of a clan (with Hyuga Neji being the undisputed king of that group). On the way back to the classroom though is where trouble struck. Having just won his bout against another student Naruto was jumping around happily reveling in his victory when he somehow landed on Taro's foot. "Uzumaki you dobe what do you think you are doing?"

"Sorry sensei, it was an accident."

"I warned you what would happen if you caused trouble today! Go home, hopefully when you come back tomorrow you will be able to behave yourself." At these words a dejected look passed over Naruto's face. He knew that no good would come of trying to argue with the decision, and he would once again miss out on the vital information that he needed to become a genin. As he walked away, and everyone else was heading back to the classroom, Iruka walked up to Taro and quietly asked, "Isn't that a little harsh Taro-san?"

"eeh, the monster is just getting what he deserves. Not a class goes by when he doesn't do something to disrupt everyone, or cause some kind of mayhem. You'll see next year."

"Next year? Do you not expect him to graduate?"

"Nope he has failed before, and I am not seeing that much of a change in him from what his previous professor noticed last year."

"What are his problems?"

"Where to start? He has no chakra control, and his knowledge of even basic mathematics, geography and history are fairly limited. The only thing that I have seen him markedly improve in is his Taijutsu. How that happened I don't know but it seems like he will soon be able to compete with many of the clan students."

Naruto arrived home and flopped down on his futon dejectedly. He didn't mean to step on Taro-sensei's feet, and because of that one accident he was no longer able to hang out with the other kids, and he had felt sure that today was the day he would make a friend. In situations like this there was only one thing that Naruto could do. He sat down and wrote a letter to Harry. Hopefully he would have some insight on what to do.

* * *

Harry was standing in his clearing sweating and breathing heavily after just having finished with his work out for the day, it had been a little over two years since the two boys had started writing back and forth to each other, and just under a year since Harry had started his martial arts training. The distance to the clearing was a little over two miles both ways (from school and from "home") and Harry had taken to running that distance as fast as he could in an attempt to build up his speed and stamina. His Martial Arts training was no where near as far along as Naruto's, due to how limited his training time was, thanks to the Dursleys, and his lack of any helpful equipment or a sparing partner, one could only do so much with the logs and rocks scattered around the clearing. Added to that, at the moment he was not concentrating too hard on the task at hand, these last few days he had been distracted after it was announced that in a few weeks' time his class was going on a school trip to London, to visit the British Museum. This meant a whole day away from the Dursleys, and a chance for him to see something outside of Little Whinging.

'Oh drat, I need to get home if I am going to get supper ready in time.' Harry thought as he looked up at the sun, with that thought Harry started running through the woods, jumping over the odd log in his path as he had done so many times before.

A week later, on the same day of the school trip, Naruto's letter arrived. Opening it on the bus Harry was surprised to read about the problems Naruto was having. 'If you know people don't like you, why are you drawing attention to yourself, and why do you trust them to teach you anything?' The number of people Harry actually trusted could be counted on the fingers of one hand with some digits left over. There was himself, Naruto, Miss Goosen, and that was about it. Everyone else was at the very least on probation. 'What Naruto needs to do is to play the long game'. Instead of the immediate gratification of a whoopee cushion, Harry had spent a good portion of his life playing down his intelligence (although mainly out of necessity) waiting for the correct time to stun everyone with his abilities. Well this was something he would address tonight once he got home from his trip. For now he had the whole day to look forward to.

The day had been going pretty well so far. Mrs. Traner, their teacher this year had given the students an hour to wander around the museum on their own after the actual tour, granting Harry a little privacy in the day. While he did not have any money to eat the museum restaurants like some of the other kids (namely Dudley and his cronies) Harry had managed to pack himself a decent lunch today without his aunt or uncle noticing. At the museum he had seen some things that were truly amazing, and he loved the story of the Elgin marbles, and their section on Japanese art. Ever since becoming friends with Naruto Harry had become something of a japanophile, borrowing many books from the local library on the culture and history. It was in the hour of freedom after lunch that trouble erupted. Coming around a corner on the way to the Asian art exhibit he saw a boy that reminded him a lot of Dudley standing over a girl with one hand holding onto her collar and the other raised back in a fist.

"Oi! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" Harry shouted as he ran into the boy as fast as he could knocking him down.

"Well a runt like you hardly qualifies, but if you want some kid, some you will have," the other boy said as he stood back up, then reached back and sent a roundhouse punch right at Harry's face. After years of dodging Dudley and his new training on top of that Harry was able to easily dodge the punch. A smile started to form as he felt it pass over his left shoulder. 'This is going to be easy.'

"If that is your best shot you should walk away right now."

"Shut up and take your beating midget" shouted the bully as he launched another punch, this time at Harry's gut.

Blocking the punch Harry looked back at his opinion "I warned you." With that Harry launched a punch of his own. As the bully went to block the punch he left himself open and Harry took advantage of that with another punch directly to the stomach knocking the air out of his opponent. While he was doubled over Harry followed this up with a kick to the head, ending the fight and knocking the bully to the ground.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked as he turned to the girl who had been standing gobsmacked. "I said are you alright?" Said harry gently shaking the girl's shoulder. It was just at this moment with his hands on the girl and the boy on the floor that the rest of his group came around the corner. "Mister Potter let go of her right now!" yelled his teacher who had just come around the corner with the rest of his class.

"What Have You Done!"

"I didn't do anything, this girl was being attacked by that boy, I just stepped in to help her."

"Don't you lie to me Potter."

"I'm not!" Harry yelled frantically staring daggers at his teacher.

"Miss the boy is telling the truth" the girl spoke up quietly.

"I am sorry, did you say something dear?"

"Yes, Richard was threatening me when this boy showed up and got him to stop." With this statement the Mrs. Traner looked very uncomfortable. She had just publicly accused Harry only to find out that she had jumped the gun. After a few minutes of stammering though she was able to regain her composure.

"Well dear, we had better get you back to your teacher."

"Dudley, can you and Polkiss help up the boy there, we need to get him back to his teacher." As the two boys grudgingly helped the bully to his feet, Mrs. Traner grabbed Harry as she started to lead the little girl towards the front of the museum, looking for her teacher.

'Great, here was I about to tell Naruto to stay out of the limelight, and what do I go and do.' Just as Harry was about to lay into himself his thoughts were interrupted by the girl next to him.

"By the way, my name is Rebecca."

"What was that?" Harry asked snapping back to reality.

"I said my name is Rebecca."

"Oh, Harry, Harry Potter, pleased to meet you."

"Thank you for saving me Harry."

"Yeah, how did a runt like you manage to take him out anyway?" burst out Dudley as he walked beside them with a thoughtful look on his face…

"Well ya' know Dudley, he had nothing on you, twice as slow and maybe half as strong" Harry replied quickly, quickly mollifying his cousin. He did not want to give away his secrets just yet. Seeing his cousin relax at this Harry let out a little breath.

"Rebecca Simmons, where have you been?" Called out a voice behind them as they walked up to the information desk in the lobby of the museum. "We have been looking for you all over, and I see that you have young Mr. Cairn with you as well."

"Well you see Mr.…" started to reply Rebecca before Mrs. Traner interrupted her.

"Are you her teacher?"

"I am, John Thompson, and you are?"

"Mrs. Eleanor Traner, Little Whinging Primary. I found these two a few minutes ago. The girl is claiming that the boy was bullying her, apparently one of my students came across them and stopped him."

"He did did he."

"Yes is this something he would do?"

"Unfortunately Richard Cairn is the troublemaker of the group, I wouldn't put it past him. I warned you Richard that today was not the day to try anything" he said turning to they young boy."

"What I wasn't doing anything, and it was that prat who hit me" exclaimed the boy quickly trying to shift the blame onto Harry."

"Don't you dare lie, I came around the corner and I saw you about to hit Rebecca, and when I stopped you it was you who threw the first punch."

"Please sir, Harry is telling the truth, Richard attacked first."

"Shut up Becky, no one likes a snitch!"

"That is quite enough out of you Richard. I will deal with you when we get back. For now you are not going to be let out of my sight for the rest of the day, and luckily for you there is a seat open right next to me for the bus ride back. Harry" he said turning on the young hero of the hour, "thank you for watching over Miss Simmons. You did a very good deed today."

"Thank you sir, it was the only thing I could do, and Dick over there wasn't that tough." A statement which caused all of Mr. Thompson's class to break out into giggles. With the matter settled Mrs. Traner led them all back to the prearranged meeting point to wait for stragglers before they got back on the bus.

Of course the trouble did not end there, by the time they got back to school there was 20 minutes still to go before classes officially ended for the day, Mrs. Traner decided to save herself the trouble and told the children to go and play until their parents arrived. A lot of people were impressed by Harry's actions. For once he was being included in the group, a part of the crowd, accepted. This potential threat to Dudley's authority could not stand. As soon as the teacher was looking elsewhere Piers Polkiss a boy who knew exactly which buttons to press started in on Harry. "Look at Harry, finally hit someone. Must think you're a big man now dont'cha Harry."

"No Piers like I said the boy was a nothing."

"Bet you think you are some kind of knight saving the damsel in distress."

"Leave me alone Piers."

"What do you think of your cousin being the man of the hour Big D?"

"Well it looks like we will have to remind the freak who the big man is" replied Dudley emphatically. With that Dudley ran after Harry who, seeing the way the tide was turning was already moving before Dudley finished his sentence. For ten minutes Harry led them on a chase around the school. He was fast enough and had the stamina to run them into the ground at this point, but the object wasn't to win, but rather to not be noticed more than he already was. After 10 minutes he let Dudley catch up to him, and spent the next seven carefully dodging as many of the attacks as he could without arousing suspicion, carefully noting those that hit him. Even this was done with dual intent. For while it worked to maintain his cover he also used it as a body hardening exercise, to make sure that he could keep his body used to taking a hit. At last some parents started showing up to collect their children and the attack stopped.

Looking back on the day's events later that night, Harry had to say that the day was a success. He had a day out of Little Whinging, and got the chance to see some of the rest of the world, tested his skills, maintained his cover with his relatives and had written a hopefully helpful letter to Naruto, partly paying him back for the martial arts scroll. All in all a good day!

* * *

Naruto's life had not gotten any better since the day he had written the letter to Harry. It had not necessarily gotten any worse, but it was not like the situation could get much worse. The only good news is that all the extra time off had given him more time to prank people and explore the village. His last one had been great, it involved almost all his supply of itching powder and the high end clothes store (a place that did not allow him within ten feet of the door). He had just gotten back from the Ninja Academy (after being sent home early yet again) when he noticed a letter waiting on the floor of his hallway. 'A response from Harry! I wonder what he has been up to.' Grabbing the letter he quickly ripped it open to read what his friend had to say.

'Use the library instead, I will have to ask the old man and make sure I am allowed, but it is a good idea. I could even use it when I am kicked out of class. This way I can continue to prank people. In fact now I may have an excuse to prank people even more. To hell with getting people to forget about me. I am going to make sure they know me.' With this happy thought rolling around in his head Naruto decided to take immediate action and go see the Hokage.

With a loud "Ojii-san" Naruto announced his presence to the old man as he walked into the office.

"Naruto, how good to see you."

"What's up Ojii-san?"

"Just doing all the paperwork that comes with being Hokage. Do you want to practice some for when you take my job? I have a whole stack of papers over there that need to be carefully reviewed." Seeing the small mountain of papers under which he assumed was a desk Naruto cast a quick glance towards any possible escape routs in the office.

"No thank you Ojii-san, I wouldn't want to deprive you of your fun too quickly, maybe once I make Chunin."

"So what can I do for you Naruto?"

"Well it's like this, Harry and I were thinking and we were wondering if I could use the library to study for my classes?"

"Naruto…" Sarutobi said slowly "are you actually saying that you want to spend time studying in the library?"

"Well yeah, my teachers always seem to kick me out of class for pretty much anything so we thought I could catch up on what I miss there."

"Hmm. I will have to give this some thought. Come by tomorrow after class and I will give you an answer."

"Come on Ojii-san why wait, you always make me wait, can't you just tell me now?"

"Naruto!" the Hokage replied sternly, "If I make a quick decision then I may have forgotten some important factors. It is almost always important to think through any action you are about to take. If you want my job you had better get in the habit of doing it yourself. Also by giving yourself at least a day to come to any decision you can be more prepared for the consequences of your actions."

"Hai Ojii-san" Naruto replied feeling like he had somehow let the old man down.

'Ah, what a wonderful morning' though Sarutobi as he walked into his office. Quickly he closed his doors, and walked out on the balcony to bask in the sun for twenty minutes before his assistant came in with the stacks of paperwork that made up a large portion of his morning. "So Ojii-San did you make a decision yet?" Naruto asked jumping out of the shadow on the balcony.

"Naruto, I haven't even had my morning cup of tea yet, do you really need to know right now?"

"Well you know what Harry says, the early bird catches the worm."

"That is an odd expression, but yes, I have come to a decision. I talked to Zuki-san the librarian last night and she said you were very respectful of the library when I let you in to find Harry a Taijutsu style. Therefore I will allow you to use the library to study for the Genin exam… But you cannot spend all your time studying the different Jutsus, and you must spend at least five hours a week helping Zuki-san with whatever she needs around the library. If I find out that you are using all your time to study different ninjutsus, or to play pranks then you will be banned from the library until after you manage to pass the Genin exam."

"Thank you Ojii-san, I will promise you will not regret it." With that Naruto ran out of the Hokage's office headed for the Ninja Academy hoping to arrive on time for once.

Naruto's decision to visit the Hokage first thing in the morning meant that he was in turn five minutes late. He luckily managed to stay under the radar for the rest of class, keeping is head down and not drawing any attention to himself. As soon as classes were over though he was out of the classroom like a thrown shuriken, headed for the library. Bursting into the library Naruto ran up to a woman whose arms were full of scrolls. She looked to be in her early forties, with black hair tied in a bun, brown eyes that looked suspiciously at almost everyone in the library. Today she wore a plain kimono while a Hitai-ate of a Konoha ninja dangled around her neck like a necklace.

"Zuki-san, good afternoon."

"Quiet Naruto. I would have thought that you would remember the first rule of the library after your last trip here. You will show this place the respect and the attention deserves if you are going to study here."

"Sorry Zuki-san, I will remember to move quietly." Naruto whispered.

"Good now you owe me five hours of work for this week. So why don't you start by re-shelving these books in the correct order in the history section. After that I will give you something else to do. If you work for an hour every day after classes you can spend the rest of your time studying."

"Hai!" With that Naruto quietly ran off to complete his appointed tasks. After spending an hour shelving books, checking seemingly random sections of the library to make sure something had not been re-shelved incorrectly by a visitor, and pulling out fading scrolls to be recopied so that no knowledge was wasted.

"Thank you Naruto, you were very helpful. Now that I finally have an assistant I can get this library back in the condition it should be in! I have taken the liberty of selecting these three scrolls for you on the history of Konoha. I would recommend that you read them to help with your studies." Taking the scrolls Naruto moved to one of the tables to start studying. Zuki-san had always been fair with him. When he had first arrived at the library to help Harry he had seen the look in her eye and had thought that she would be just like most of the other citizens of Konohagakure, it took him a month to discover that this was the way she seemed to react to almost all visitors in the library, especially kids. She had seen too many people disrespect the scrolls she was responsible for. Only once she had new that you were not going to destroy them by spilling anything on them or scribbling on them (as according to her all children were want to do) would she her real nature to shine through. Therefore he decided to read the scrolls she suggested first before wandering through the rest of the library looking for other books to use.

By closing time, Naruto had finished the first of the three scrolls the librarian had selected for him. He carefully put his own note taking scroll away before placing the libraries three in the return tray. "Naruto, you know that you can take those with you if you want."

"What was that Zuki-san?"

"I said you are allowed to take the scrolls home with you if you wish to keep on reading them at home."

"Thank you, I'd love to do that."

"In that case just fill out this paperwork for a library card" she said handing him a form and a pencil, "and you can take out up to three scrolls at a time." Naruto grabbed the pencil and started filling in the blanks in the form as fast as he could, almost as if he was worried that the woman would change her mind.

"Here ya go Zuki-san." He said handing over the now completed form.

"And here is your library card. These books can only be taken out for a week at the most. If you have them out for longer than that you will owe me ten ryu for every day that they are late." Nodding in Understanding Naruto took the precious card, and placed his scrolls in his bag before making his way to Ichiraku's for dinner.


	3. Chapter 3 Revelations

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster.

Ch.3 Revelations

Almost two years had passed since Naruto started to work at the library. In that time many things had happened. Firstly, in turns of studies, he was almost caught up with the rest of his class. More and more he understood what Taro-sensei was talking about in class. Looking back on the situation it was almost funny, even before he had started at the academy teachers had kicked him out of class to hold him back. Because of that as the class moved on with their studies Naruto, who did not know the basics, was left behind to the point where until recently he had spent most of the time in class staring out the window, and thinking up pranks. Still all things considered he had managed to catch up fairly quickly. This in turn was due to two things. Firstly, thanks to his constant letters to and from Harry, Naruto had managed to keep up his reading and writing abilities. Had it not been for Harry Naruto would have been almost illiterate. Secondly, thanks to the attitudes of the villagers Naruto had few friends, that meant that in the evenings he was not out playing with anyone, or spending time with is family. Instead after the library closed he would go to diner at Ichiraku's and then either go train in Taijutsu, or go home to study. On top of that, now every time he got kicked out of class his actual study time was increased as he could then go to the library.

Naruto discovered that he loved the library. People never seemed to visit the library with any frequency so here he was not constantly feeling people glaring at him. Here there was knowledge; he did not have to be the baka everyone at school called him, if there was something he did not know he could look it up without anyone making fun of him. He especially loved reading history. It seemed like his life was finally turning around, and that he had a good chance of passing the upcoming Genin Exam. His ninjutsu and genjutsu still needed a lot of work but he knew he would do well on the written and taijutsu portions.

* * *

Harry's school year was coming to an end. The summer holidays were always a hard time for Harry, a mixture of joy and despair. While he no longer had to deal with all the other students from school, and being chased around the playground by Dudley, this did mean more time was spent at his aunt and uncle's beck and call twenty four hours a day. Last year this had meant building extra bookshelves for both of Dudley's rooms to hold all his toys, those both broken and working. 'I wonder how things will be in September' thought Harry as he ran home after spending a few hours in the clearing. At the end of the summer Dudley would be going off to Smeltings, and Harry would be attending Stonewall High. Not having to worry about Dudley deciding that it was time for a spot of "Harry Hunting" was definitely something to look forward to. 'Maybe I will finally be able to make some friends in Little Whinging, and be able to work at my actual ability.' It was thoughts like this that were responsible for the smile Harry was sporting as he walked into No. 4, only to be greeted by his aunt Petunia "Boy where have you been school ended over two hours ago."

"Sorry aunt Petunia, the teacher wanted me to stay behind after the last exam today, then I witnessed a small car accident on the way home and I had to write out a statement for the police."

"An accident, was it anyone we know?" Petunia asked hungrily. She was well known as the gossip queen of Privet Drive, and was always on the lookout for juicy information on her neighbours.

"No, it was some people I had never seen before."

"Alright, now go get started on supper." With that Petunia walked off to talk to Dudley, and Harry made his way into the kitchen to get started on the Chicken Kievs he planned to make for supper.

The next morning was a Saturday and Harry was just putting away the eggs and sausages when his uncle made an announcement, "boy, the family is going into London today. Time to do Dudley's school shopping. If we come home and find anything out of place or broken there will be hell to pay. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Uncle Vernon."

"Good, I have Mrs. Figg's, coming over at one o'clock, she can't come before then, but I expect you to behave until she gets here. We'll be back by five o'clock, and I expect supper at seven."

"Yes uncle Vernon." Harry knew that on days when things seemed to be going well for him his best move was to keep his head down.

"Good Boy" Vernon grunted as if he was talking to a dog. With that the family all walked to the car, ready to begin their adventure.

As soon as the family was out of sight Harry danced a little Jig. A half day with the house to himself this is what Harry thought a birthday present must feel like. Today he practiced his Taijutsu (as he since learned his martial art was called) in the backyard (this meant that he did not have his normal run to the clearing, but the tiny victory of getting to work out at home meant a lot to him), and then watched the telly, turning it off after only thirty minutes in favour of reading his new library book on meditation. In his studies he had read how studying meditation would help him concentrate and not be bothered as much with what was going on around him. Given how bad his life was, anything that would make it more tolerable was something he was interested in discovering. When Mrs. Figg came over they sat in the living room and talked about her cats for awhile until she nodded off, at which point he went back to reading and taking notes. As he finished another chapter and looked at his notes his alarm sounded, it was time to wake up Mrs. Figg as the family would be home soon. All through dinner Harry looked forward to trying some of the exercise from the book. He needed all the practice he could get because in a few weeks time it would be Dudley's birthday and Harry knew he would all the help he could get to make it through that day.

That night Harry sat on his mattress, slowly thinking through the events of the day, putting his mind to rest, clearing his head before going to sleep. This was the first step according to his book; after all before you can concentrate on any one thing you must remove all the clutter first. The whole process took around thirty five minutes and when he was done Harry found himself falling asleep very easily.

* * *

Naruto was busy working in the library pulling out old looking scrolls to check them for aging. Zuki-san had explained to him that scrolls wore out over time, and every now and then it was necessary for them to copy out the scrolls again so that the scrolls would still be readable and the knowledge would not be lost. The preservation of knowledge was Zuki-san's lifelong goal. He still remembered the day she had explained it to him, "Naruto, there is no such thing as evil things, only evil people. As a librarian I have a duty to make sure that no knowledge is lost. This way we can learn from our past, and we can always have the tools available to better not just our lives but the lives of those around us."

"But Zuki-san, what about the forbidden scrolls that the Hokage keeps, surely they must be evil or we would keep them in our collection."

"Naruto think about what I just said, there are still evil people. The forbidden scrolls are scrolls are so powerful that someone has to make sure that only the right people learn from them to make sure they are not misused, or they require such a sacrifice to use that it would be dangerous for the wrong people to attempt to use the information they carry. For this reason it is up to the Hokage to decide if their knowledge should be shared." Naruto was bringing a bundle of scrolls up to the front desk when Iruka-sensei walked in.

"Iruka-sensei, I haven't seen you around here before."

"Naruto, what are you doing here this is the ninja library, you have not passed the Genin Exam yet?"

"I work here for an hour a day after class. Is there anything I can help you find, and it's not that big a deal, I will be able to come here as much as I want in a few weeks." At this statement Iruka was taken back for a few seconds.

"In that case Naruto I am looking for any scrolls you have on First Great Shinobi War. I will have to teach the classes next year and I need to be able any questions that are thrown at me."

"Ah right this way sensei" Naruto replied happily walking towards the history section. "Here is our section on the war it runs down these 5 columns until this scroll here on the election of the Sandaime Hokage."

"Thank you Naruto, do you have one you recommend?" Iruka asked jokingly, not expecting an answer,

"Hai, for an overall understanding of the First Shinobi War from the Konoha point of view I would recommend this scroll here by Uchiha Kurahi. Although for a deeper understanding of the actions of the other villages I prefer this one here by Sabaku no Deku a Suna-nin." A shocked look passed over Iruka as he heard this.

"You have read both of these?"

"Hai Iruka Sensei, Zuki-san says that if I am going to be a ninja of Konoha it is important that I know exactly what and who I am going to be devoting my efforts for. That way I will know that my actions will be worth the concequences." This led to the two having a long discussion on the causes and effects of the First Shinobi war, and laid the foundation for a friendship.

Over the next few days Iruka would come into the library to make sure he was ready for next year, and would stop to talk to Naruto. Their talks covered many of the topics that were taught in the Ninja Academy, history, tactics, lock picking, mathematics, and geography to name a few. Finally their conversation turned to ninjutsu and genjutsu, the only area that Naruto was still really struggling with.

"Iruka-sensei, maybe you can help me with something. I am having a hard time with my jutsus. I have only managed to make one work so far and that is my anti-pervert prank the Oiroke no Jutsu." Happy with the opportunity to practice teaching Iruka jumped at helping his friend, afterall it would not count as favoritism to help him outside of class as he did not actually have any pupils of his own yet.

"Well I won't ask to see something like that, let us step outside and go to the training ground near here." Luckily training ground 9 was empty.

"Alright Naruto show me your Bunshin, make three clones of yourself.

With that Naruto made the correct hand seals and forced the chakra out, shouting out, "Bunshin no Jutsu!" Suddenly four copies of Naruto each appeared, but there was something wrong with each of them. The first one had a head that was three times the size it should be, the second one had enlarged arms, the third one looked very pale and looked as if it had passed out on the floor, and the fourth one was missing a nose.

"Ah Naruto it looks like there could be several things wrong with the way you are doing this. Firstly you made too many clones, that means that you are putting too much Chakra into your jutsus. Might I recommend not shouting the name of the jutsu, many people do it to help concentrate and force **more** chakra into their jutsus, if you whispered the words it might work better, also being able to say the words quietly is better as there is less chance of your enemy knowing what jutsu you are using against them. Secondly the enlarged, and missing, body parts mean that you are not regulating your chakra properly. I would recommend some chakra control exercises. If you work on these two things then you should see great advances in your jutsus."

"Hai, thank you Iruka-sensei. You are a great teacher, no one else has given me any advice on how to perfect these," the boy replied causing the chunin to blush.

"So what is wrong with your Kawarimi?"

"Oh that? Hopefully nothing, I only just discovered that you can't substitute with just anything, it has to be something you've put your chakra into, and I only just started doing that. Hey sensei, why does everyone always choose a log?"

"Because Naruto we live in Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves, a piece of wood lying around a battlefield is expected in Hi no Kuni, if you used something else, people might notice it, and destroy it during the battle, then when you tried to switch out with it to avoid an attack, you wouldn't, and the next thing you know your dead. You want to make it something no one else is going to notice."

"Oh, thats pretty cool."

As soon as Iruka had left the library that day Naruto ran up to the librarian, "Zuki-san, Zuki-san, do we have any scrolls on chakra control?"

"We have some Naruto, they are in the Jutsu section, where you are not allowed without permission, why do you ask?"

"I was talking to Iruka-sensei, and he was saying that my problems with my jutsu may be because of the fact that I am using too much chakra, and my control is horrible. If I want to be able to pass the jutsu portion of the Genin Exam I need to work on my chakra control."

"Ah and the Academy chakra control technique doesn't work why?"

"They teach one at the academy?"

Not for the first time Zuki suddenly had the urge to hurt someone. 'They really went out of their way to teach this boy as little as possible didn't they.' She exclaimed to herself, "Yes Naruto, they teach a basic one that is good for people who don't have much experience with chakra. Go into my office and pluck a leaf from one of my flowers and I will show you." When Naruto returned she took the leaf saying "Alright Naruto the trick here is to focus the correct amount of chakra on a part of your body to hold the leaf there, like this." With that Zuki took the leaf, placed it on her forehead, and walked around with it not falling off.

'Wow,' thought Naruto, 'sometimes I forger she is a Jonin ranked ninja.' "Zuki-san that was impressive, can I try now?"

"I would recommend going out and getting a few more leaves first, if you use too much chakra the leaf may burn into flames, so it is a good idea to have extra leafs as backups. Also start the exercise standing still, only start walking around once you have mastered getting it to stick in the first place." That night after dinning once again at Ichiraku's Naruto sprinted into the forest outside Konoha to gather as many leaves as he could carry, then sat in his apartment trying to master the exercise until small hours of the morning.

* * *

Ever since that day alone Harry had noticed the benefits of his meditation. Every morning, after a night of working on his mind, he woke up bright and early as per usual, but now he was also feeling more refreshed than he remembered being previously. He also noticed that he seemed to move more gracefully, and completed his tasks slightly faster than usual. Now the day he had been dreading since just after Christmas had come, Dudley's birthday. Today "Big D" was turning eleven, 'Oh wonderful' thought Harry as he started preparing Dudley's birthday breakfast, 'That means today I can expect at least 11 punches'. Ever since Dudley was old enough to realise how his parents treated Harry he had made a special point on his birthday to hit him, one time for every year he had been alive, this was of course outside of any normal beatings. Harry had grown sick of the little tradition, but there was nothing he could do about it without giving away his secrets, and Vernon did nothing to stop it. It was at that precise moment that Dudley ran down the stairs, into the kitchen and drove his first punch right into Harry's gut. "Happy Birthday to me freak" exclaimed Dudley loudly, "that's number one." With that Dudley happily sat down to eat his breakfast. Halfway through his meal Vernon and Petunia brought in Dudley's presents, "Here you are son, these are for you!" It was at this moment that Dudley did something that Harry often believed was beyond Dudley, he counted above ten, checking to see exactly how many presents he had received.

It was the phone ringing that would change Harry's life. It happened as he was washing the frying pan, Uncle Vernon as the head of the household got up to answer the phone. "Dursley Residence, Vernon speaking."

"Oh Mrs. Figg, how are you, looking forward to having Harry help you in the garden are you?" Where upon hearing Harry's name mentioned Dudley leaned over and gave Harry a punch in the arm. "Oh I am sorry to hear that, are you sure it is that bad?" Dusley asked as a pleading note seemed to enter his voice, "Well we understand, thank you for calling us, goodbye." With that Vernon slammed the phone on the receiver the calm and gracious nature he had on the phone dissolving in an instant. "That damn woman can't take him today Petunia."

"What? She promised!" she screeched with a discernable note of panic slipping into her voice.

"Well apparently something came up."

"What are we going to do? We can't take him with us!" Upon hearing this Dudley needed to let his feelings be known.

"Mum, don't bring Harry, he will ruin everything. I don't want him spoiling my birthday!" and with that he began to cry the tears that always assured he got what he wanted.

"It's too late dear, Piers will be here in a few minutes and we don't know of any other babysitters. He either comes with us or we have to leave him here for the whole day on his own, then God knows what kind of trouble he would get up to."

"But us…with him…in public?"

"Nothing else to do." With that he grabbed hold of Harry's arm and dragged him into the living room. "Listen boy, if you do anything freakish to ruin this day you will pay for it in ways you have yet to experience. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes uncle Vernon, I will be on my best behaviour and I will try not to stand out."

The trip to the zoo seemed to be going very well. While the others were not happy to have Harry along on the trip they were not going to draw any attention to him in public if they could, so while he had to follow along behind them, none of them were being particularly bad, except when Dudley thought he could get away with giving out a few of his special birthday present to Harry. Things changed though when they entered the house of reptiles. They walked through looking at the geckos, iguanas, alligators, and crocodiles until they came to the snake section. As Harry caught up with the group he saw Vernon tapping on the glass before walking away. Stopping by the boa constrictor Harry took a minute to vent a little as everyone walked away.

"Lucky for you they left, I have to put up with them all the time." Then amazingly, he could faintly hear the snake talking back through the glass.

"Sucks to be you Señor, although I see about thirty idiots like that a day." A stunned look passed over Harry upon hearing this. Thinking he was going mad, he turned back to the snake,

"How can you understand me?"

"Well because you are speaking my language. How you are doing that I don't know, but if you get the chance, can you tell them to vary the diet up a little I get served field mouse every day. They're delicious, but one does get bored of them after a while." This second reply, and confirmation of his thoughts caused Harry to take a step back. Before turning back to quickly answer in the affirmative. He would like to have spent more time talking to the snake, but he had noticed Dudley running up, and needed to once again slip into his alter ego of the stupid quiet boy.

That night working on his meditation took a lot longer than any night previously. He just could not get over the new power he had discovered. He needed some way to check to see if it was not a fluke, and to measure the extent of his abilities. But first he needed to write a letter to Naruto, after all no ten year old boy could keep something like this a secret for long, especially not from their one real friend.

* * *

It took Naruto a couple of evenings worth of practice before he could get the leaf to stay on his forehead. Once this was achieved he started trying to master walking and keeping it in place. This in turn took another evening of hard work, but at the end of it the leaf would stay as he walked around his small apartment. Overjoyed with his success he happily ran up to Zuki to show her his achievements, "Zuki-san look what I can do." With that Naruto stuck the leaf to his head and walked up and down her office.

"Very good Naruto" she said after watching the performance. "Now follow me," with that she left her chair and walked towards the door where she stopped, "Naruto, a gentleman should always open the door for a lady."

"Sorry Zuki-san" with that Naruto went to remove his leaf and grab the door when she grabbed his hand,

"No Naruto Keep the leaf in place!" After mastering walking turning a door knob was not a problem though. "Good, now come along" halfway down the hallway she asked a question as they walked towards the tactics section, "Naruto what did you study today at the academy?"

"Oh today was mainly spent ta…" Naruto was cut off by his leaf falling to the ground.

"Naruto now you have the next step in your training, you must be able carry out a normal day with the leaf stuck to you. Now go re-shelve that stack of scrolls over there." With that Zuki walked right back into her office closing the door behind her."

The next day Naruto received a lot of odd looks. Everywhere he went he tried to keep the leaf stuck to his head. This did make his life slightly easier as when Tazu noticed it during class he thought Naruto was setting up another prank and once again kicked him out of the class, giving him almost the entire day to spend at the library. The work went quite quickly today, until Zuki summoned him to her office. "Naruto I want to congratulate you, you have worked hard to catch up with your classmates and are now starting to surpass them. But to be a great ninja you need more than just the knowledge of jutsus, and to know the important dates of Konoha history. You must also be able to fight well. Part of that is knowing how to analyze your opponent, and develop strategies for winning. Here is a book on Shogi. I want you to read it and then tomorrow I will start teaching you the game by playing as your opponent, at least one game a day." Naruto had never had someone play a game with him and did not know how it was going to help him, but Zuki-san had always been right up to now so he grabbed the book, gave a firm nod, and sat down to study.

That night Naruto got back to his apartment a little earlier than usual, and was happily surprised to see another letter from Harry. After the second sentence the leaf attached to his forehead shot the ground and burned up. 'Hen-ry-kun has a special ability. I wonder if it is like the one that the Hyuga have. This seems like something I should check with the old man about, I don't want to give away any village secrets by accident.' With that thought all attempts at studying went right out the window. The rest of the evening was spent wondering if his friend also had the ability to be a ninja like him. 'Does this mean that we could share more information with each other? Will the old man try to recruit Harry to become a Shinobi of the Leaf? That means Harry might move to Konoha!' such thoughts kept Naruto busy for the rest of the night.

Before the sun was finished rising the following morning Naruto was already at work at one of the training fields. He had not been able to think or concentrate all night, so he had given up and tried to burn off all his excess energy by running laps and practicing his Taijutsu, all while trying to get that leaf to remain. Around five in the morning he finally mastered the exercise. This time when he tried the Bunshin Jutsu they all were in the correct proportions. The only problem is that even whispering he had created nine clones. 'Great the only thing left is to somehow limit the amount of power I am putting into the jutsu. At least some progress has been made, I better go get something to eat before meeting with the old man.'

An hour later Naruto was once again waiting for the Hokage as he walked into his office. "Naruto why is it you always insist on seeing me so early in the morning?"

"Sorry Ojii-san, but this was so weird I thought I had to get your opinion right away."

"So what is it Naruto?"

"It is this letter from Harry. Read the first two lines please." He waited patiently as the Hokage took the letter and began reading with an interested look upon his face. You could tell when Sarutobi had read the pertinent information by the way his eyes suddenly shot open.

"Naruto, it would seem like your friend has a Kekkei-Genkai. What can you tell me about his family?"

"Not much Ojii-san, he is an orphan like me, and lives with his mother's sister and her family. But they do not get along well."

"Has he said anything about them having the same ability, or about his father possessing it?"

"He knows nothing about his father, and I get the impression that the only thing special about his aunt's family is in how horrible they treat people."

"I need to talk to some people, but it looks like your friend may be someone special."

"Does this mean that Naruto might be able to move to Konoha?"

"Like I said I need to talk to some people first, now run of to the Academy or you will be late again."

"Hai Ojii-san" replied Naruto dejectedly.

That evening when Naruto walked into the Hokage's office there was a young kunoichi talking to the old man. "Naruto this is Mitarashi Anko. Among her many skills and abilities she also holds the summoning contract for snakes. I thought since Harry was your friend that you should be here when she talks to one of her summons. Come over here and take a seat Naruto, Anko whenever you are ready."

"Hai Hokage-sama." With that Anko went through the hand seals for the summoning jutsu, slammed her hand into the ground. Suddenly a large snake appeared filling up most of the room. It looked around the room hissing at everyone before finally turning to Anko and saying, "I see no enemies here Anko-san, why have you summoned me."

"I summoned you for information Matu-san. I know that we can speak because you have gone to the effort to learn our language, but have you heard of a clan that can speak the language of the snakes?"

"Why do you ask this?"

"We've come across a boy who says he can speak to snakes."

"We snakes have a legend of a clan that can do this, but they are not from the elemental countries, and the story goes that they could not only speak to snakes, but all like creatures."

"Like creatures? What do you mean?"

"They could also speak to the crocodiles, and others of the noble reptile race."

"Thank you, do you have any other information on them?"

"None, that is all we of the snakes of the elemental kingdom know about them." With that the snake returned from whence it came in a puff of smoke. After the revelation everyone sat around in silence for a few minutes before Sarutobi at last stood up.

"Anko-san, thank you for your assistance, I will keep you appraised of any new developments."

"Hai Hokage-sama" Anko replied with a bow before leaving the room.

"Naruto, it would appear you have a very powerful friend."

"Hai Ojii-san, but this also suggests that he can access chakra, as that is how all the Kekkei Genkais that I know about work."

"Oh" said Sarutobi with a smile, "I had not realized I was sitting with an expert."

"Am I wrong Ojii-san?"

"No Naruto you are not wrong. If a person cannot access chakra, at least in my experience, any Kekkei Genkai he has is also useless, although I will check with the Hyugas to see if they have any different data tomorrow."

"So since my friend lives outside of the elemental countries, and therefore isn't a threat to us, may I be allowed to share information with him about my life, and his potential?"

"Naruto what do I always say when you ask me questions like this?"

"You say come back tomorrow and you will have an answer."

"Correct, however this time the question is not like other times. Come back in four days and I will have an answer for you. Now then is there anything else?"

"Not unless you can tell me how to use less chakra."

"What Naruto?"

"When it comes to creating Bunshin, I have gotten pretty good at the chakra control exercise, so I can create clones now, but I can't make less than nine." At this the Hokage started to chuckle. It always seemed funny when people complained about having too much of what everyone else would consider a good thing.

"Sorry Naruto I can't help you there, you just need to work on it, however as an incentive whenever you get to the third stage of the Chunin exam I will teach you a technique to make up for your Bunshin problem. Now if that is all I think I will say goodnight." Naruto quickly thanked the old man and went home to study his Shogi. He really needed to study hard as Zuki-san had already laid into him pretty hard over not being ready today."

The game of Shogi did not play to Naruto's strengths. While he could, and often would, take the time to develop and plan a good prank, it was not something he would do sitting down and concentrating on the issue. He preferred to be moving, and did his best thinking when he was doing his morning exercises, piecing ideas a bit at a time. A game that required him to sit still and calmly think through the consequences of his actions seemed to go against every bone in his body. After all half the fun of playing a practical joke on people was that you did not know how they were going to react. That doesn't mean that he did not quickly understand the relevance of the game to the ninja life once it was explained to him. The thing about it though that really annoyed Naruto was that no one had shown it to him earlier. Naruto had spent the last few years catching up with everyone else, doing in two years what everyone else seemed to do in four or five, then, just when he thought he had finally caught up with everyone, finding out that he was still missing a whole section of knowledge was just such a let down. It was on days like this that he understood why several of the students called him "baka."

Four days had now gone by since he last say the old man, and in that four days he had played seven games of Shogi. Each one seemed to be over before his tea got cold. "Alright Naruto I can happily say that you are not seeming to make the same mistakes more than twice against me, but you need to find other people to play against otherwise you will only expect people to come at you in one way. It is like practicing against different Taijutstu styles. Now off you go I believe you have an appointment with the Hokage."

"Hai Zuki-san, thank you for the game" Naruto said as he stood up and put away the board before heading out to meet the old man.

"Naruto come on in" Sarutobi called out as he saw the boy at the door, "I almost expected to wake up this morning to find you hovering above my bed waiting for my answer" he said with a chuckle.

A slightly uncomfortable look came over Naruto as he scratched the back of his head, like he had just been caught playing a prank, "I did consider it Ojii-san, but Zuki-san said that I need to practice my patience, and that maybe appearing to have matured would help sway your decision."

At this news a slight chuckle again escaped the old man, "You wouldn't know it to look at her but back when she was your age, she was almost as good a prankster as you, but she also had what many considered a special dojutsu to get herself out of almost any punishment. One look in her eyes and you wanted to forgive her."

"Really, Wow, I will need to get her to teach me that."

"Now I take it you are here to talk about Harry" seeing the affirmative nod the Hokage continued, "you can tell him about us so long as you get a promise of secrecy from him. I am also willing to let you send him scrolls so long as none of them are of higher rank than you have already achieved, and none of them can be village secrets. Lastly every scroll you send him will need a seal on it to make sure it cannot fall into the wrong hands. You will need to ask him if he can make sure to smear some blood on the next letter he writes you so that we can make the correct seal."

"Does this mean that every time I want to send him something, I am going to ask him to send me more blood" asked Naruto slightly aghast at the idea of constantly asking his only friend to keep on cutting himself, just so they could communicate.

"No Naruto, we just need it for the first time. I will show you how to create a base so that the same seal can be applied to multiple items without needing more blood, he will need to add blood though to the seal of any scroll you send him."

"Thank you Ojii-san, this is a great gift you are giving me."

'Damn, this is a hard letter to write' thought Naruto as he sat in his apartment. There were scrunched up pieces of paper littering the whole floor from past attempts at explaining everything to Harry. 'How do you go about telling someone that he has special abilities, and that you need a sample of their blood?' With that thought Naruto crumpled up his latest attempt, threw it on the floor in disgust and start on draft number sixteen. Finally an hour and four more drafts later Naruto had made the best attempt he could at trying to explain everything to Harry. It was a fairly lengthy letter, but he hoped his friend would respond soon. Having done that, and it now being very late he decided to try and get some sleep before his game of Shogi tomorrow.

* * *

Tomorrow was going to be Harry's birthday, or more precisely in four hours it was going to be Harry's birthday. This fact may have been known to some people, but would only be celebrated by one person at No. 4 Privet Drive. That in Harry's mind would be the best outcome. If his "family" discovered it was his birthday, his cousin would have a field day, and quite frankly Harry was getting tired of playing the punching bag, and was considering dropping the façade just for the opportunity to give himself a real birthday present. Harry always had a hard time sleeping on two days of the year, his birthday, and the night before Halloween, what some including Harry called Devil's Night. On the eve of his birthday Harry was filled with too much energy to even try to sleep. He liked to watch the hours tick away until he was suddenly one year older.

At four that morning Harry left the cupboard and silently went through his morning stretching, then snuck outside to work on his taijutsu before his aunt woke up. Next, knowing if there was one day when he would miss breakfast, he quickly cooked his own before getting everything set up for the Dursleys. While the rest of the family was eating breakfast Harry went to greet Sam and grab the mail. Surprisingly today there were two letters addressed to him. As per usual these were quickly hidden before bringing in the rest of the mail. After breakfast Harry was put to work weeding the garden while Dudley went out to meet his friends. After spending several hours working in the garden (which actually was Harry's favourite chore, at least the plants appreciated the care and attention he gave them), Harry cooked Petunia lunch. After lunch Petunia told him he was free to do what he wanted for the rest of the afternoon until dinnertime.

As quickly as was prudent Harry ran out of the house and headed for his clearing. Arriving at the clearing Harry carefully examined his letters. One was obviously from Naruto, the other he did not recognize at all. This made the decision of which one to open an easy one. With that Harry tore open Naruto's envelope, started reading…and almost immediately stopped. 'What the…' Harry tried to think, 'is this one of Naruto's pranks? But he's never played one on me before. Maybe I should open the other letter.' Opening the second letter did not help the situation at all. The letter was an invitation to a "magical school". At this Harry had to sit down on the ground. 'Wow, this is odd, to say the least. First I should probably read what Naruto has to say.' Harry spent the next twenty minutes carefully reading Naruto's letter. His first response to the letter was anger. 'All this was going on in his life and he told me nothing? Anything abnormal happens to me and he is the only one I tell.' Understanding soon settled in though, after all it was not only Naruto's secret to keep but his whole village's. The question came down in the end to how much he actually trusted Naruto. The answer to that was simple. Now he needed to deal with the other letter and get a reply off to Naruto. 'Maybe he can help me with this Hogwarts thing, I should at least let him know about the school offering me the seat. Harry quickly wrote Naruto a reply and as soon as he got home the first thing he did was go into the kitchen and "accidently" cut himself chopping the vegetables while cooking. During dinner that night Harry decided that tomorrow he would show his aunt and uncle the letter he had received today. 'Worst case scenario they shout at me and hit me, maybe I can find something out.'

The next morning Harry made sure that Breakfast was already on the table before the Dursleys had even come down. As was usual when he had a letter to mail to Naruto Harry was waiting for the postman at the door. "Hello Sam how has your morning been?"

"Not too bad so far, I see you have another letter you want me to drop off when I finish my rounds" Sam replied taking Harry's letter.

"Yes please." As Harry watched Sam walk down the street he suddenly noticed out the corner of his eye a large bird dropping down on top of him. The owl finally came to a rest at Harry's feet, and expectantly stuck out its leg, which had a letter attached. 'This must be what they meant in the letter when they said, "We await your reply by owl." I wonder if this owl can understand me, well only one way to find out.'

"Can you come in and wait in a dark room for about twenty minutes before I give you a reply?" With a small hoot and a bob of its head the owl flew onto Harry's shoulder. "Thank you." Harry carefully walked into his cupboard and watched it hop off to land at the foot of his mattress. "I should be back in a few minutes." Walking into the kitchen Harry was thinking about how to approach this odd situation, 'I wonder if I can play it off as if nothing has happened?' With that thought in mind Harry walked back into the kitchen where the Dursleys were eating breakfast and handed Vernon the mail, including his letter. Now came the test. Vernon picked up the mail and without even looking to see who it was from or to ripped open the top letter and started reading. "Another bloody bill" growled Vernon as he placed the first letter aside, "Oh Here is one from Marge…She says that one of her dogs just gave birth and so she has four new pups now." Finally Vernon came to the letter Harry actually cared about. He had lifted the letter so the address was facing away from him, and was starting to open it when suddenly Petunia snatched it out of his hand. "Petunia what are you doing" cried a shocked Vernon Dursley.

"You don't want to open that letter Vernon" she replied with a slight sound of panic in her voice.

"What? Why not" He replied impatiently.

"It's a letter from them!"

"Them? You mean your sister them, those freaks?"

"That's exactly what I mean Vernon." With that Petunia walked to the living room.

"Aunt Petunia that letter is addressed to me" called out Harry as he saw her standing over the fireplace lighting the gas.

"I don't care you boy. You are not going to have anything to do with these freaks."

"What are you talking about Aunt Petunia?" 'She obviously knows something about Hogwarts. What can this mean? I definitely was not expecting this.'

"I am talking about none of your business boy. Now forget about this." The scathing tone of her voice which seemed to almost drip malice, something Harry had not experienced before shut him up for a few seconds. There was only one thing left to do that Harry could see.

"So you already know about Hogwarts?" Before he knew it his aunt in a burst of speed that no one ever suspected turned around and slapped Harry across the face. "Never mention that school to me again." With that she started marching off until suddenly she stopped, "Boy" she shouted, "who told you about Hogwarts. Now the odd beatings from his uncle Harry was used to, along with the looks of barely disguised repulsion, and he had grown up with the constant assaults from his cousin, but while Petunia would order him around, and did not seem to care what happened to him, or how he was treated by her family this sudden surge of anger and hatred that was currently directed at Harry was a new thing. "I received a letter yesterday from the school saying that they had accepted me as a student. I thought it was just a practical joke. Are you telling me this school is real?"

"Of course it's real you stupid freak. Where do you think your parents met?"

'Well that explains what Naruto calls my Kekkei Genkai.'

"So why can't I go?"

"Because we didn't put a roof over your head, and three square meals a day for you to turn into a freak. I will not pay for it, and I will not have a freak living under my roof. Now go to your cupboard I don't want to see you for a while."

As soon as Harry had made it back to his cupboard, the owl locked eyes on him, waiting for an answer. Harry quickly pulled out his notepad and scribbled.

_Dear Minerva McGonagall,_

_ I am indeed very interested in attending your institution, unfortunately I do not have the finances to afford Hogwarts at the moment, and have no idea where to purchase many of the items on the list provided. If you would be so kind as to send me any information that you have on scholarship opportunities, and the locations of the relevant stores where the correct equipment can be found I would be most grateful,_

_ Yours Sincerely_

_ Henry James Potter._

Harry looked over his letter, he thought he had done a good job of expressing his position, even if he did leave out the problem with his relatives. 'Well I hope that after a letter like this they take me seriously.'

"Here you go Owl, I'm sorry for keeping you waiting."

Minerva was calmly sitting in her office, preparing things for the coming term (although after teaching for so long there was no longer all that much left to prepare) when the owl carrying Harry's response flew through her window. Calmly taking the owl's note she began to read, until suddenly she bolted out of her chair and was marching towards Dumbledore's office with a look on her face that promised unpleasantness to any who would dare get in her way. Arriving at the gargoyle she angrily barked out "Custard Creams" before taking the stairs two at a time and almost ripping the headmaster's door of its hinges as she flung it open.

"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, What is the meaning of this letter" she demanded as she threw the offending piece of paper at him. Albus startled at this grand entrance looked quickly for an escape, not knowing what had made his deputy headmistress so mad.

"Minerva you really shouldn't…"

"Be quiet Severus at the moment this has nothing to do with you" Minerva replied cutting him off. "I am sorry Severus it looks like we will have to continue this discussion another time" Dumbledore said as he carefully took the piece of paper. That was when he noticed that Minerva's foot was tapping against the floor at such a rapid pace that it almost sounded like someone had let a woodpecker in the room. Quickly reading the few short lines Dumbledore sat back, "Obviously there has been some kind of misunderstanding Minerva."

"Misunderstanding" she said slowly and quietly, as if trying out the word in her mouth, "I think this is a bit more than that Albus. You are his magical guardian, what happened to the Potter fortune under your stewardship?"

"Nothing Minerva, I have barely done anything with it beyond checking in with the goblins once a year" Dumbledore answered quickly.

"Then why does the boy not feel like he can afford Hogwarts Albus, and how can his aunt not know about Diagon Alley, she must have at the very least heard Lily and her parents talking?" Minerva was not known as one who gave up easily, or let people escape once she had them in her crosshairs.

"Obviously no one has told him about his financial situation, I don't think his relatives know about it, so how could he, and they may be less than forthcoming about their knowledge of the magical world."

"You mean you don't think they want him to attend Hogwarts?" McGonagall was knocked back with surprise.

"Are you telling me that the son of James and Lily potter isn't coming to Hogwarts?" Her demeanor which had started to relax suddenly became almost twice as frosty.

"No Minerva, Harry will be attending Hogwarts that I promise you, but it sounds like someone will need to pay the Dursleys a visit and help straight-out any misconceptions"

"So I take it you will be paying them a visit very soon?" Minerva asked with a voice that let him know that she was expecting very little disagreement.

"No" replied Dumbledore in an authoritative voice, "I was actually going to have you go, as Headmaster it would be a little inappropriate for me to be seen to be so involved in the life of one particular student. You were also close with both James and Lily and so may be more effective than any other representative I could send."

"Fine I will visit the family tomorrow morning" replied a resigned McGonagall, who then calmly walked out of the room showing her normal reserved demeanor to any who saw her.

Thursday morning, the Dursleys were just finished eating breakfast, and Harry was washing the plates when there was a ring at the door. Harry quickly put the plate down on the counter next to the sink and went to greet the visitor. Opening the door he saw a stern looking woman dressed in a long dark plaid skirt and matching jacket. "Good morning mam, how can I help you?" He asked politely

"Good morning Mr. Potter. I am Professor McGonagall."

"McGonagall?" he said a confused look on his face, until suddenly he remembered, "... Oh from Hogwarts?"

"Precisely, may I come in?"

"Of course you may?" As Minerva started to enter Vernon Dursley's bark was heard from the living room,

"Boy who was at the door?"

"A miss McGonagall uncle Vernon" Harry called back.

"What did this woman want?"

"I want to speak with you and Petunia Mr. Dursley" answered an angry looking Minerva. As soon as she stepped into the living room it was clear by the way that Petunia suddenly jumped in her chair that she recognised exactly who was talking.

"Vernon…it's one of them!" she called in a hoarse whisper. Upon hearing this Vernon stood up to face the angry Scotswoman,

"No thank you" he stated clearly and not a little angrily himself, as he stood up from his chair and marched to meet her, "get out of this house! Who do you think you are coming Here!"

"Mr. Vernon, Sit Down Before I Make You! Now I have come to discuss Harry's Hogwarts education."

"Why that boy will not be attending your school, and when you leave that will be the end of it."

"And why not Mr. Dursley?" with a frosty tone taking over her voice, letting everyone know that there was going to be a fight over this issue and she expected to win.

"I did not take that boy in out of the goodness of my heart to see him turn into a freak. He will go to Stonewall, and become a useful member of society." exclaimed Vernon.

"He has had his name down for Hogwarts almost since the day he was born. It was where his parents went to school, and where they met. Surely you wouldn't deprive a child of such a meaningful place" McGonagall asked attempting to try and reason with Vernon Dursley, a move that made Harry blink in surprise before he lowered his head. 'Wow was that the wrong move to make' thought Harry.

"And look where it got them, dead, and us burdened with an extra mouth to feed. Anyway I am not willing to pay for him to go and learn silly card tricks."

"Mr. Dursley let us clear up a misconception." McGonagall said pulling her wand, "I have tried to be nice about it, but you will not insult Hogwarts school again, and it would be in your best interest not to insult the memory of James and Lily Potter in my presence. They died a noble death." With a jab she sent out a spell that destroyed the coffee table in the middle of the room. "Is that understood?" frightened by what he had just seen Vernon started to nod quickly. Hearing the sound of the breaking table Dudley ran down from his room, and stood in the corner as he watched some old woman talk to his dad about the freak.

"Now then on the subject of the cost, Potter is more than eligible for the scholarship it would not cost you a penny, and from what I can tell" at this point she let out a derisive sniff, "You would be glad to have Harry out of your hair for nine months of the year."

"We would only have to live with the boy for three months? Is that guaranteed?" A look somewhere between greed and hope seemed to appear over his face.

"The rest of the time can be spent at school, and some of that time may be spent visiting friends."

"Then we accept."

"Vernon…" Petunia wailed.

"We accept Petunia" Vernon said with a note of finality.

"In that case Harry, we have some shopping to do." She said as she turned, put away her wand, and headed to the door. "Harry you can't go shopping like that everyone will recognise you. Do you own a hat?"

"I have an old cap of Dudley's." Harry asked hoping that would be acceptable.

"That should do, run up to your room and fetch it. I will wait here." Unfortunately McGonagall had decided to stand right in front of the cupboard.

"Actually I just need to get in there" Harry replied pointing at the door to his "room". As she moved out of the way, Harry opened the door and quickly moved to get his cap while McGonagall was looking elsewhere. Unfortunately he did not move quick enough.

"Is that a cot" asked McGonagall starting to get angry again.

"Ummm" said Harry as he looked for a way out of this, unfortunately none were visible, "yes".

"Harry take me to your room" She said emphatically.

"Can't we just go I'm interested in seeing where we shop."

"Mr. Potter take me to your room now!" As soon as she said this you could hear the sound of something breaking in the living room, as the three Dursleys all looked at each other, afraid of what would happen next, and the cup of tea Petunia was holding now forgotten on the floor.

"Umm, this room is my room" said Harry apologetically. The news caused the normally calm and collected Minerva McGonagall to suddenly storm right into the living room.

"Did I just discover that Harry Potter lives in the cupboard under the stairs, like some troll under a bridge" she demanded in a tone that sounded like it had been perfected somewhere near the north pole. Vernon, in an attempt to head off the angry teacher replied, "He is lucky to have a room to himself. This is not a big house, and all the other bedrooms are used up."

"Show me" she said quietly

"This is my house and I have had quite enough of this thank you very much. Please leave."

"Dursley, show me!" This time she reached for her wand. With that everyone trundled upstairs.

"This is Petunia and my bedroom" looking around it had a lot of knick knacks on top of dressers, a large king size bed against a wall, and a mauve carpet on the floor. "This is Dudley's room" said Vernon standing in the hallway. Inside the floor of the room was littered with items of clothing and pieces of different toys, with bookshelves all along one wall, that were in turn filled with a lot of toys, and very few books. "This is the guest bedroom, where my sister stays when she comes to visit." This room had a dull brown carpet and beige walls, but on the walls were paintings and pictures of dogs, it was obvious that Vernon's sister had claimed this room as hers. "And that is it."

"If that is it Dursley then what is in that bedroom?" Here is where Dudley decided to but in with his two cents.

"Harry can't have that room, that's my second bedroom!" This was said with such emphasis, that it took Minerva a few second to even process what had actually been said.

"Your second bedroom" she asked in a voice that almost made you want to check the windows for signs of frost.

"Yeah" replied Dudley thinking, 'this old bat isn't that frightening, what's wrong with my parents' as he got ready to bully this hag back out the door.

"Dursley," Minerva said turning to face Vernon, and pulling her wand again, "we are going shopping, and let me make one thing perfectly clear. I expect Dudley's "Second Bedroom" to be turned into Harry's room by the time I get back. Do we understand each other?"

Before Vernon could say anything or even nod though his son decided to but in again, "Who do you thin..."

was as far as he got before the deputy headmistress turned on the boy, swished her stick a few times an transfigured his shirt into a straight-jacket, and caused his mouth to stick shut, and the sudden changes to force him to fall onto the floor.

As they stepped outside Harry turned to McGonagall

"Miss McGonagall, where are we going?"

"Firstly Harry if you are going to address me I prefer to be called Professor McGonagall or simply Professor, not miss. Secondly, we are going to Diagon Alley, you need to visit your bank. I did not say this in front of your relatives but there is a Potter account at Gringotts."

"And Gringotts is a bank?"

"Yes, although to British wizards it is the only bank, and happens to be run by goblins, so you will get to meet some for the first time. Now Harry we have some things to discuss before we get started." Saying that she pulled the young boy down the street before turning to face him, "Harry, what did your aunt and uncle tell you about how your parents died?" McGonagall asked seriously setting aside her food temporarily.

"Only that they died in a car crash, why did something else happen?"

"Yes Mr. Potter," here Professor McGonagall had to pause for a second, she had not expected Harry to be this uninformed. quickly she led him down the street to the bus stop where they could at least be sitting while she talked to him, "Around twenty years ago a dark wizard arrived in Britain. He gathered many supporters and started a war in wizarding Britain. A war that claimed many lives. The night your parents died, this wizard attacked your parents house, killing them both. Then something happened. No one is sure exactly what though. All that is known is that the house was destroyed, the dark wizard appeared to be dead, and you had that scar on your forehead. Up until that night everyone was living in fear, and because you survived, and the evil man is now gone, you are seen as a national hero by most wizards." As McGonagall finished her story, she reached out to hug the young boy, who had just learned for the first time about how his parents died.

'I had parents, and they weren't useless like aunt Petunia always said' thought Harry. As the information started to take hold of Harry he noticed that he had tears dripping down his face. After a minute Harry turned to the kind old woman, the first woman who had told him the truth, "Why did he come after my family?" Harry asked.

"I don't know why he picked them specifically, but they were both on the side that fought against him, and helped put many of his supporters in prison." McGonagall said patiently.

"So they were good people and did right?"

"Harry, they were some of the best people I knew. Back when he was a boy and in school your father was a little wild, always off playing pranks, but he was definitely a good man." McGonagall said this with such conviction that Harry suddenly found himself hugging her.

"Thank you, thank you." Harry whispered while he held the normally stoic old woman, who was now hugging him back. After a few minutes they pulled away and the old woman got Harry's attention again.

"Harry I told you this for a reason, when we go shopping today I want you to keep who you are quiet and keep your scar covered up. Hopefully people won't notice you, I don't think you want to be mobbed by people and have everyone know who you are on your first day. I would recommend waiting for Hogwarts for that to happen, before showing off to the rest of the magical world. Alright?"

"Yes Professor, don't worry I seem to be pretty good at being unnoticed." With that Minerva took out her wand and raised it in the air. Within 2 minutes a red bus appeared screeching to a halt in front of them. As they climbed aboard a young man wearing a dirty bus conductors uniform who seemed to be suffering from a bad skin condition called out, "Welcome to the Knight bus…" but before he could say more McGonagall locked eyes with him.

"Thank you Mr. Shunpike, two to Diagon Alley please, and tell Mr. Prang that I don't wish to be banged about." She said with an air of authority, while handing over some money.

"Of course Professor McGonagall" the conductor said quickly before making his way to the front of the bus to talk to the driver.

As soon as they sat down Harry turned to his guide, "wow, the bus just appeared, how'd you do that?"

"The Knight bus can be summoned by any witch or wizard, all you need to do is stick your wand up while out on the street Harry. I normally don't like to use it, but it was either that or to do a side along apparition, and I don't think you are ready for that yet." The Professor replied. The next thing they knew the bus had come to a stop outside a dirty looking pub, that almost looked like it was boarded up called the Leaky Cauldron.

As soon as they walked in Harry knew he was no longer in the normal world. He was standing in what looked like an old pub. Looking up the ceiling was made of wood, supported by giant beams that ran the length of the building and the walls were a whitewashed daub. The place was full of oddly dressed people sitting at tables, or at a bar that ran the length of the building, eating and drinking. "Where are we?" asked Harry.

"The Leaky Cauldron, I am told that we are located somewhere on Charing Cross road. Now then Harry, don't draw attention to yourself and follow me." Minerva replied as she started walking purposefully towards the back of the pub, and opened a door that led to a garden surrounded by a high brick wall. The garden had little in it except for a rose bush which grew out of the back left corner, and some trash-bins that were placed in the back right corner. Carefully McGonagall examined the bricks before calling Harry over, "Look carefully at this brick, and remember it Mr. Potter." After waiting two minutes she pressed her wand against it. Then the magic happened. The bricks started to disappear one by one, showing a busy street behind them filled with people going from store to store. "This is Diagon Alley. It is the wizard shopping district in Britain. Now follow me, Gringotts is that building down at the very end with the columns in front." With that the pair started walking down the road. Harry could not believe his eyes, every shop seemed to hold something amazing. Over on the left was an apothecaries with jars filled with weird specimens in the window. Right next door to that was a magical broom store. Down the road Harry saw a pet shop with Owls asleep in the windows, and even further down, something that looked like a wand shop. As Harry walked through the district the look of awe never left his face as he tried to see everything at once.

Finally the pair appeared in front of the building at the end of the street. Gringotts bank. It seemed to be made out of white marble, and looked like it was gleaming in the morning light. As they headed towards the entrance the door was opened by what Harry had to assume was a goblin. He (and at this point for Harry it was a guess) stood around five feet tall, had greenish tinged tough looking skin, an overly large nose, ears, and fingers, which on one hand were holding the door, and in the other gripped the haft of a speer that was longer than he was. Behind the bank guard was another set of doors and a poem which threatened people thinking of stealing. As soon as they were past the second door the scene changed, the marble on the outside was reflected on the inside with a stone ceiling, walls and floor, with a row of goblin bank tellers sitting behind a stone counter. Down at the other end of the building wizards and goblins were walking in and out of different offices. McGonagall quickly led Harry to one of the Tellers and stated, "Excuse me, Mr. Potter would like access to his vault please."

At this the goblin behind the counter looked up from the ledger he was writing in, and slowly examined the two humans in front of him before replying in a slightly bored tone, "do you have his key?"

"Of course I do. Here it is "McGonagall said before placing it on the counter. The Goblin carefully examined the key before turning around and shouting in some odd guttural language (or he could have just been clearing his throat thought Harry). A younger and slightly shorter looking goblin ran up and took the key, "follow Griphook, he will show you to the vault."

"This way please" called Griphook as he led them through a door into a room that had an old mining cart that Harry remembered seeing in an American western one time when he was allowed to watch the telly, "Everybody in, please don't stick your arms out to the side as there are some narrow corners on this journey." Once everyone was a comfortable as they would get the goblin pulled on a lever and off they went.

The trio zipped through the tunnels under Gringotts before finally coming to a stop outside vault 687. Here we are the "Harry Potter Trust Vault" declared Griphook who then proceeded to open the door showing large piles of gold, silver and bronze coins. "Wow" said Harry, "is this all mine?"

"Yes Mr. Potter, although it does have to pay for seven years of Hogwarts, and until you get a job after that" McGonagall answered looking over the contents of the vault.

"So how much does Hogwarts cost a year" inquired Harry attempting to come sort out his current finances.

"Hogwarts fees are set at five thousand Galleons a year. Not counting those students who are on some form of scholarship."

"A Galleon?" Harry asked, never having heard of the currency before.

"A Galleon is the large gold coin, which is made up of seventeen Sickles, the silver coins, which in turn are made up of twenty nine Knuts each" she replied holding up an example of each coin as she described it."

"Thank's Professor, now how much should I take out to buy my supplies, and should I take out my money now to pay for the school year?"

"Don't worry about the school fees, we will send Gringotts a list of students, and they will transfer the money directly from your account. Now if you will fill out this money bag" she said pulling an old fashioned draw string bag from her purse, "we can start shopping." Harry quickly shoveled as much money as he could into the bag before following her out to the mine cart and back to the surface.

As they were leaving the bank Harry suddenly turned to his Professor "Professor, can I change some of the money into Pounds before we leave please, There are some regular things I have needed to buy for a while, and I never had the money to do it. You know, clothes and things" Harry asked as he waved his hands over his body that was currently covered in his whale of a cousins hand-me-downs.

"Alright Harry, but not too much, or your aunt and uncle might take it from you." The woman replied sternly. With that Harry quickly ran over to another counter, and turned fifty Galleons into two hundred and fifty pounds.

The first store Harry walked into was Cartwright's Luggage Emporium. "Mr. Cartwright, this is Harry, he is a muggle raised boy who will be attending Hogwarts this year and is in need of a sturdy trunk."

"Hello young Harry, if you will follow me, this is the basic trunk that everyone goes to Hogwarts with" the owner said as he lifted the lid on a trunk that looked like many Harry had seen for sale in stores in Little Whinging.

"Does it come with any special spells on it?"

"Not standard no, but a list of spells can be added if you desire, I have a list somewhere. Most people don't think to ask or they have their parents do it."

"Can I see the list?" Harry carefully looked down the list of spells the man handed to him, several of which made him stop in amazement, not realising they were actually possible. 'Well I certainly have a lot to learn' thought Harry.

"How much larger does the Engorgement spell make the trunk, and can an Engorgement spell and a Shrinking spell be placed on the same item, or do they cancel each other out?" Harry asked.

"The ward I use on these trunks triples the size of the inside son, and they don't cancel each other out, one affects the outside of the trunk and the other the inside." Mr. Cartwright replied jovially. He would have to remember to mention the alterations in the future, it made sense that muggle-borns would need someone to alter their trunks before their first year.

"I will need this trunk with the Engorgement spell, the Featherlight spell, the Shrinking spell, the Notice Me Not spell and lastly this Privacy spell, which I assume makes sure that only I can open my trunk." Harry said before giving the list one last check to see if he missed anything and then handing it back to the shopkeeper.

"You are quite correct about the Privacy ward, and as for the rest, not a problem, that is six Galleons nine Sickles for the trunk, and another three Galleons for the spells. You do realise that for this locking ward I will need a sample of your blood."

"I don't see that being a problem" Harry replied shooting McGonagall a questioning look, and receiving a nod in response. "You will also need a book bag to carry school supplies in" called out McGonagall as she calmly watched over the proceedings.

"Easily taken care of" Mr. Cartwright said as he walked over to a wall covered in bags, "these are our satchels, what colour would you like?"

"I like that one" Harry replied pointing to an olive drab satchell, "but can I also get the same spells on them, except for the Shrinking spell?"

"You want a privacy ward on your satchel?" Mr. Cartwright asked, surprised at such a request. Receiving a firm nod from Harry the man got to work. "Alright Harry your total with the satchel is fourteen Galleons, nine Sickles and twelve Knuts." Harry calmly dipped into his drawstring bag and carefully counted out the money. "Now I just need a few drops of your blood for the Privacy spells" Mr. Cartwright said handing Harry a small knife, and an empty piece of paper. Harry carefully sliced his pinkie and let a few drops fall before handing both back to the shopkeeper. "Wonderful now for the shrinking ward I use all you will need to do is tap the trunk with your wand, it will recognize your magical signature and shrink. This whole thing will take about twenty minutes, and I will need your wand to align the Shrinking ward, so if you want to head over to Olivander's, by the time you have found your wand I should be about ready for it.

As Harry walked into the wand shop, that apparently had been around since the third century (B.C.), he was surprised by an old man standing in front of a counter, who called him out by name. "Harry Potter, I have been expecting you… I am Olivander." The man said as he came around the counter stand near Harry. Greeting Harry by his first name surprised the boy after the conversation had with Professor McGonagall, so it took him a second or two to respond,

"Hello sir…" began Harry but before he could say anymore the man had already unrolled a tape measure that was now running itself all over Harry, something which, if you are not prepared for it, can be a little disconcerting.

"Ah it is good to have a Potter back in my store again, you know I sold both your parents their wands as well." Before Harry could even try to reply this time the old man had wandered into the back and returned with two stacks of boxes. "Now then my boy why don't we try this one, sixteen inches, Ebony and Unicorn hair" said Olivander as he took a wand out of one of the boxes and held it out expectantly.

"I don't know any spells yet" Harry said hesitantly as he looked at the wand.

"Not necessary my dear child, just give it a wave" Olivander replied staring at Harry waiting to see what would happen. Harry grasped the wand and swung it in a wide arc. The wand let out a loud fizzle, but that was all. "One down, many more to go" cried Olivander as he snatched the wand back and replaced it with another, "eight inches, walnut and phoenix tail" he barked as he slapped the new wand into Harry's hand. They continued in this vain for nearly half an hour until finally Olivander wandered off into the backroom, coming back with a dusty box that had not been touched in several years. Mr. Potter lets try this one, eleven inches, Holly and a Phoenix feather. Harry, who at this point was starting to get more than a little aggravated, grabbed the wand and once again swung it, only this time it did not fizzle, a bolt of dark blue light flew out, and knocked Olivander over. "It looks like we found it Harry Potter, and it looks like you have a fair amount of power" he said while rubbing his chest where the spell had hit him. "I must say I am surprised this is the wand. Now if I could have it back, I need to place the ministry tracking charm on it." Olivander took the wand over to the counter for a minute, pulling his own wand and casting several spells over it before handing it back. "That will be seven Galleons please Mr. Potter." Harry once again counted out the coins, still getting used to the new system of money.

"Sir, sorry about knocking you over, I guess I was getting a little aggravated over not finding a wand, I did not expect it to do that. I apologise" Harry said contritely as he handed the old man his money.

"Think nothing of it, I normally can identify the wand for a person within about four attempts. You proved a fun challenge Mr. Potter."

After that Harry returned to the luggage store, picked up his purchases, and spent the rest of the morning going from store to store with Professor McGonagall, filing his trunk (with the exception of his cauldron which the shopkeeper promised would be delivered to the school before the start of term) with everything that was on the required list. The only other major stop was the bookstore. Here Harry quickly purchased all the school books required for his year before turning to the clerk and asking for a few other books, "excuse me sir, but do you have any books for muggles entering the wizarding world, telling them what to expect, about things like the Knight bus and so on?"

"Actually we do, but for some reason no one asks for it." With that the grey haired wizard walked into the back room, coming back with a book. "I took it off the shelf eight years ago when no one seemed to want it." The clerk said as he handed over the book. With his books all purchased Harry was done for the day. He still needed to buy some things back in Little Whinging before school started.

On the bus ride back to Privet Drive Harry McGonagall gave Harry an envelope, "Harry this is your ticket for the school train. It leaves at eleven o'clock on the first of September from Kings Cross station. Do not miss it!" She said emphatically. "Harry, I have a reputation at school of being fair and impartial, and I am not going to change for you, but if you want to talk about anything my door will always be open."

"Thank you Professor, I will remember that, and don't worry about the train, I don't think there is anything that would get me to miss it." Harry replied earnestly. A few seconds later he was home, and now just had to survive a month until school started. Arriving home Harry was surprised to see that Dudley's second bedroom had indeed been cleaned up. As Harry put down his bag and trunk he heard uncle Vernon's voice from downstairs. "Boy, get down here we need to talk."

Carefully entering the living room Harry saw all three of the Dursley sitting facing him.

"Boy" said his uncle in a strangely quiet voice, "we need to talk. Since we have gone to the trouble of making that room liveable, you may move into the bedroom, but I better not have any more of those freaks coming by my house and threatening me. Do you understand me. We don't want that freakishness in this house. Don't think that just because they came here once that will change anything. People from that school know you have been living here for the last ten years, and this is the only time any of them have ever visited, so I don't think I have to worry about them showing up at any moment. Therefore don't think for a second that I will put up with any of your lip. Do you understand?"

"Yes uncle Vernon" Harry said quietly making sure not to look up

"Good now go to your room. We are going out to be out till late tonight, and I am locking you in there. I will unlock the door when we come back, but until then you are not to leave the room." Harry walked back up to his new bedroom followed by Vernon Dursley who as soon as Harry was inside closed the door. Harry could here a key in the door and the bolt lock the door in place. Only then did Harry smile as he pulled out his wand, enlarged his trunk and began to go over his new school books to see if there was anything he was missing, all the while thinking, 'great at least six hours of undisturbed reading time. I need to send Naruto a letter and tell him about this, and figure out what to do about the post system. Time to really get to work.'


	4. Chapter 4 First Days part 1

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis.

Ch.4 First Days.

The day had finally come. Today Naruto was taking his Genin Exam. Naruto had not been able to fall asleep last night until the early hours of the morning. This explained why he was now running as fast as he could along the rooftops towards the Ninja Academy. He was ready, he knew he was ready, but that didn't mean anything if he could not make it to the exam in time. Running through the front door at full speed he quickly took the steps two at a time as he sprinted towards his classroom, seeing other Senseis closing their doors. Iruka had just started to close the door as a weight suddenly knocked it back in his face, dodging to the side quickly he turned around to see a panting Naruto walk in and take the only empty seat in the classroom. "Glad you could join us Naruto" the young teacher said as he went to close the door again.

Taro-sensei stood at the front of the classroom, a stack of papers on his right looking over the class before calling them to order, "Now that Naruto has decided to grace us with his presence, I believe we can get started. Iruka-san if you would hand out the written portion of the exam, we can begin." When Iruka was finished going from desk to desk placing copies of the test in front of each child Taro spoke again, "This part of the exam will last one hour. You may begin…Now!" With that Naruto turned quickly to the first question. _Name the three major battles of the Third Shinobi War, and how their outcome affected the rest of the war_. 'Wow, this is easy, I hope they stay like this for the whole test. Thanks to his extensive reading at the library Naruto found that at least the history, geography, and mathematics portion of the test seemed simple. It was only when he stopped to check the time when he was half way through with his test did he realized the major mistake he had made. 'What! How am I supposed to answer half the questions in less than twenty minutes?' Naruto had made the mistake of writing too much and going in to too much detail on his answers that his last few answers were almost monosyllabic.

Suddenly as he was going back to fill in some of the answers more completely did he hear Taro-sensei's voice call out "Time! Everyone stop writing. You will now proceed outside to test your Kunai, Shuriken, and Taijutsu skill level.

Outside everyone stood in line to take turns throwing against the different targets set up. This was the one portion of the exercise that Naruto had been confident about from the beginning, he had spent hours at the practice ranges in the training fields working on his knife throwing, preparing for this very day. As Naruto's turn arrived he stepped up to the throwing line shouting "Alright everyone, watch how a master does it." With that boast Naruto threw all his knives as quick as he could at the furthest target. fifty feet away the round wooden target suddenly the center of the target looked a little like a hedgehog. Moving over to the Shuriken station Naruto was now even more confident of his skills. This time his targets were cut outs of men. It was at this moment that the evil glint that let you know he was planning something entered his eye. Taking a minute to compose himself Naruto took aim at the target twenty feet away and in rapid succession launched his Shuriken right at the targets naughty bits, turning the area right around the groin into a forest of blades. Letting out a victory cry Naruto stepped away. Unfortunately Naruto had not seen Zuki-san who was standing off to the side supporting him, who upon seeing the perverted and childish display walked right up to him and shouted, "Naruto, grow up, and stop being such a pervert," with that she raised her fist and bashed him on the head. Rubbing the top of his head furiously where her fist had landed he turned to see her walking back to the viewing area, before he muttered, "Old bag can't take a little joke" as he made his way to stand in line for the Taijutsu portion of the test.

The Taijutsu portion of the test required the child to last at least three minutes in the ring with one of the Ninja Academy professors. When Naruto's turn came up he found himself facing his friend Umino Iruka. While Iruka was holding back and only fighting slightly above a genin level several students had already failed this stage of the exam. Naruto entered the ring and bowed to the only person in the Ninja Academy who had even tried to teach him something. As soon as the match started Naruto took the offensive running at the teacher and trying to get in close and remove Iruka's height advantage. He then threw a punch at the man's neck that was blocked by a forearm. Naruto was not able to get back on guard in time, and suffered a punch in the face that knocked him back a step. Naruto was able to dodge the follow up kick to his midsection though and used the opportunity to try and sweep his friends leg, causing Iruka to hop back and give Naruto some breathing room. The fight continued and at the end of three minutes Naruto had taken several hits, and landed far fewer, but he was still standing. Bowing once again to his friend Naruto walked to the classroom turning his thoughts to the last section of the exam the Ninjutsu test.

One by one students were walking into another classroom. Some were returning with their Hitai-ate's proudly on display for all of Konoha to see, while a few others did not return at all. Inside the classroom most of the students were talking amongst themselves, comparing answers from the written test, or discussing moves they had used in the Taijutsu fights. Finally it was Naruto's turn. Walking into the backroom Naruto faced Taro-sensei and Iruka-sensei. "Alright Naruto, let's start with an easy one" Taro-sensei said, expecting the boy to fail from the start, "Henge into a replica of Iruka-sensei."

Naruto did not really have to concentrate, Henges always seemed to come easy to him, in fact he had even developed his own, the Oiroke no Jutsu that had managed to get him out of trouble a time or two. 'Wow it looks like I am going to pass this Genin Exam with flying colours' thought Naruto as he quickly made the hand seals before whispering "Henge no Jutsu" and turning into a perfect replica of Umino Iruka holding it for a minute as the two teachers examined his copy.

"Good job Naruto" said Iruka as he made some notes on the pad of paper in front of him.

"Now for the Kawarimi, did you even remember to bring your log Naruto?" the instructor asked causing the boy to start to scratch the back of his head nervously before quickly ducking out of the office and coming back with the thick stick of wood he had been channeling his chakra into for the last few months. "Good, go ahead and place it on that chair right there, and then come back and stand over here," Taro-sensei said while he waited for the brat to follow his instructions. "OK, I want you to replace your body with your log," Taro-sensei called out.

Once again Naruto quickly went through the hand seals before softly calling out "Kawarimi no Jutsu" and suddenly appearing at the back of the room, swapping places with the log that stood there only moments before.

When Naruto had returned to stand in front of the two Chunin Taro-sensei told him to perform the last mandatory Jutsu, "Naruto we now need you to create at least three clones." A little smile appeared on Taro-sensei's face as to his knowledge Naruto had never performed a successful clone.

Naruto quickly performed the hand seals which were by now almost muscle memory before breathing out "Bunshin no Jutsu" in a voice so quiet neither professor actually heard him. A bang was heard, and a large amount of smoke filled the room. When the smoke had finally cleared nine clones of Naruto stood in the room. Each one was the correct size and shape, with the correct skin shades and hair color. They looked perfect from where Naruto was sitting, well almost perfect, the one at the back looked a little sickly. After a minute Naruto released the jutsu and the clones disappeared in another large cloud of smoke.

"Well Naruto, you have somehow passed the Genin Exam" Taro-sensei said almost behind gritted teeth, handing Naruto his Hitai-ate, "congratulations."

As soon as he heard these words Naruto jumped into the air waving his fists in victory. Quickly he grabbed the forehead protector and firmly tied it around his head, checking himself out in the mirror hanging against one of the walls in the classroom. "Naruto" Taro-sensei was almost shouting trying to get the boy's attention, who would not stop staring at himself in the mirror, "Naruto, you can leave now. Be back in the old classroom tomorrow morning at nine to be issued your instructor. Naruto quickly bowed and left to go show the rest of the class, that he like them had passed and was now a ninja of Konoha, before going with Zuki-san to Ichiraku's to celebrate his victory.

That evening the Hokage, Umino Iruka and several Jonin sat in the Hokage's office going over the list of new genin and dividing up the teams. "Is everyone here?" Asked the Hokage after a few minutes.

"Everyone except Kakashi" said a Jonin standing in the back with a Senbon needle in his mouth.

"Then we can start without him, if there was anyone specific he wanted to train he should have arrived on time." The Hokage decided, "Now is there anyone here who would like to request a specific graduate?"

"Hai, the flames of youth burn brightly in Rock Lee, I wish to train him and help his flames burn even higher." Maito Gai the Green Beast of Konoha said.

As soon as the kid's name was mentioned Iruka handed the Hokage the boy's file.

"Ah yes the hard working boy with no ability to use either Genjutsu or Ninjutsu. I see he also he did alright with the written portion. Are you sure you want to request him?" The Hokage asked.

"As Konoha's Taijutsu master I should be the one to train him as it is all he has. He also has a work ethic that will prove to you all is potential to be a great ninja." This statement was followed by his signature Nice Guy Pose, which caused his teeth to sparkle with such brilliance that half the room were partially blinded for a second or two.

"Then as tradition dictates, by taking the person ranked last in the class, you will also be assigned this year's All Star and this year's top Kunoichi, Hyuga Neji, and Tenten. Are there any challenges to this?" This question was greeted with silence. Whilst normally there was a fight over who would get to train the All Star no one wanted the extra hassle of having to train the Hyuga Prodigy. The family would never leave you alone, and the boy would be receiving a lot of supplementary training that would put a strain on the team dynamic. Seeing no response to his question the Hokage moved on, "Are there any other requests?"

At this moment an older ninja made his way to the front of the room. The man wore the standard Jonin uniform, and his hair was starting to turn grey at the temples and on his Goatee as he entered his fifties. Aside from that there was nothing on the surface that distinguished this particular man from any of the other Jonin in the room. Nothing except Mimura Hamaki had not taken a genin team in over fifteen years. "I request Uzumaki Naruto." Dead silence filled the room. Ever since the older ninja had entered the room the other Jonin had been wondering what he was doing here, but the one person no one expected to have requested was the Kyubi brat.

"Are you sure Hamaki-san? Why do you want him?" The Hokage asked Mimura Hamaki had always been a very private person, and the Hokage did not thing he was the kind of man who wanted Naruto just to make his life a living hell, but you never knew with the quiet ones.

"I have always been a part of reconnaissance teams. Naruto has proven over the years with his pranks an ability to infiltrate almost any building in Konoha, and sabotage his target, all in a bright orange jumpsuit! With a lot of training and a change of wardrobe he could be a great asset to Konoha doing what he does now, but just against our enemies… Also Zuki-chan told me that boy has a lot of potential, and I am not about to ignore her recommendation."

"Any Challenges?" the Hokage asked not expecting any, "No? Done, Hamaki the boy is yours." After that there were no more requests for individual children, and the teams were divided quickly among the Jonin who were willing to train the future of Konoha. Half way through the meeting Kakashi, a Jonin with spiky silver hair, whose face was covered by a mask and whose Hitai-ate covered left eye walked in. Surprised to see that the meeting had begun, and that he was too late to request anyone he took the team assigned to him, and left a little depressed that they had not waited on him.

The next morning Naruto made sure that he was seen slowly walking to the academy his Hitai-ate proudly on display for all of Konoha to see. He sat down with the rest of the new graduates next to the only boy he found worth talking to in his class Rock Lee.

"Hey Lee, glad to see you passed. Who do you think your Jonin instructor will be?" Naruto said, trying to make conversation until the team assignments were handed out.

"Naruto, good morning, I see you too managed to defeat the evil test." Lee replied with a level of enthusiasm that reminded Naruto why so few people took the effort to talk to the boy. "I was told by Maito Gai that he would be requesting me personally. I will hopefully soon learn from the greatest Taijutsu master in the Elemental Countries."

"Wow specifically requested, that is pretty amazing you must have done something awesome to get his attention." Naruto said surprised, he had not had much chance to interact with many Jonin outside of Zuki-san, and she was not going to be taking a team this year.

"Hai! He saw me training early a few months ago and since then has been helping me develop my Taijutsu technique. He even bought me these weights so that I can become stronger and faster while just walking around. Aren't they great?" The boy said as he lifted one of his leg warmers that Naruto had noticed him wearing for the last few weeks.

"Wow I would never have even thought of something like that, I wonder if I can make something similar." Naruto said as he looked out the window thinking about how much stronger and faster he could have been, and what it would take to make his own set. It was at this point that Taro-sensei walked into the classroom and addressed the graduates.

"OK, everyone pay attention. I have your team assignments." With that Taro-sensei started calling off names. As a team was called the instructor would walk out of the teachers office and lead the kids away. "Rock Lee, Hyuga Neji, and Tenten your Jonin is Maito Gai, and you will make up team 9…" After hearing his friend get the team it wanted, even if he did have to put up Neji who could be very distant and a little stuck up, Naruto lost interest until about ten minutes later, "…Uzumaki Naruto, Tira Misu, and Hamada Makoto your Jonin-sensei is Mimura Hamaki and you will be team 14…" As the three students heard their names they stood up and approached the oldest Jonin who had come into the classroom.

Hamaki led them to an empty classroom and sat them down, "So, I have read all your files, but I do not yet know anything real about you, so when I tell you I want you to list your name, something you like, and what your dreams are, understood?" Receiving understanding nods from everyone Hamaki pointed to Makoto first, a beefy boy with a shaved head and very thick arms. He wore his Hitai-ate around his head, a tank top shirt, brown shorts, and ninja sandals. "You, begin."

"My name is Hamada Makoto. I like to hunt. I have gone into the forest many times with my father to help him kill game for our Butcher shop. I hope to learn to be a great ninja to defend the village, but also to perfect my hunting skills so that our shop can be the best in Konoha if not Fire Country."

"Good, your next girl" Hamaki said turning Misu, a tall, gangly girl with black hair that ended at her shoulders.

"My name is Tira Misu. My parents own the Tira pastry shop in town. I like baking, and Genjutsu. My goal in life is to carry on the family bakery, and become a great Genjutsu mistress."

As soon as she had finished speaking and before Hamaki could say anything Naruto jumped up saying, "I am Uzumaki Naruto, destined to be one of the greatest ninjas Konoha has ever seen. I like ramen, playing pranks on people, working in the library, and ramen. My goal is to one day rival the Sanin in ability, but remain in Konoha to keep those I care about safe, and one day be Hokage."

As Hamaki looked over his three new pupils he studied the children he was now responsible for, 'I have a tracker, an infiltrator, and an interrogator, this could be a great team.' Then he gave his own quick biography, "I am Mimura Hamaki. I chose you three to form a reconnaissance team. I have been a Jonin longer than any of you have been alive, and my goal is to protect Konoha by making sure that the future ninja of Konoha know how to do their job. Now important news, you may have passed the Academy test, but you are not genin yet. Every team that is created needs to pass a test administered by their Jonin instructor, in your case me." At this point he was interrupted by Naruto.

"What that isn't fair." The boy said jumping to his feet in anger, only to be reined in by Misu punching him in the thigh stating

"Shut up Baka, everyone goes through this."

"Alright, fine, bring on your stupid test I will destroy it like a bowl of Ramen."

"Your test" replied Hamaki once Naruto had sat down again, "is to find one Mitarashi Anko, wait until she is inside a dango stall and steal a stick of dango from her, and bring it back to me."

"Where will you be Hamaki-sensei?" Misu asked, as she tried to cut out any problems.

"I will be at the barbecue restaurant waiting for you." The man replied, and with that he disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

The three kid's looked at each other for a moment before Naruto finally spoke up, "Do either of you know anything about Mitarashi Anko?" receiving a head shake from Makoto before Misu responded, "I don't but a lot of the dango stall owners buy pastries from our shop, I have heard them talking about her, apparently she is one of the best customers of several of the stalls, she must be a dango fiend. I also heard she works for Morino Ibiki head of the Torture and Interrogation Department."

"I know where that is" shouted an excited Makoto, "the T&I department work over in that grey building near the Hokage tower."

"Wow I did not know that about her, but I did meet her once, she has the ability to summon snakes. How about we start by checking all the dango shops we can think of and then if we can't find her we can camp outside of the building and wait for her to leave the office. I have a few good hiding places near there that will allow us to keep an eye on the building."

As they walked down the road Naruto's new friends were discovering for the first time what it was like to walk a mile in his shoes. It was like every person in the town wanted them dead. "Wow Naruto, they must really hate your pranks" Makoto said as they turned down a new street.

"Nope this all started before I was pranking people. Why do you think I wear this orange jumpsuit, there are a lot of shops and restaurants that I am not allowed in. This is all I can afford in the stores that let me in the door."

"Why do they do this Naruto-san?" Misu asked, she had seen many of these people in her family store, and there they were all great customers who seemed to not have a bad bone in their body, but now the citizens of Konoha were starting to frighten her.

"I have no idea, but it has been this way all my life. When I was five I was kicked out of the orphanage because the people who worked there didn't like me, and ever since then I have been living on my own dealing with this. The only thing I can think of is my parents must have done something really wrong, but no one will tell me."

Twenty five minutes later our three hopefuls were checking the dango stalls when they finally spotted their target. "Is that her?" Makoto asked pointing to a kunoichi in a tan trenchcoat.

"That's her" replied Naruto, who was the only one who knew what she actually looked like.

"OK we need a plan" Misu said.

At this Naruto jumped in, "This is easy, the owner of this stall hates me, in fact one time he threw a kitchen knife at me. Misu-san go in and order a stick of dango and start eating it right next to Anko, I will go in and try to order something, and the owner will cause a ruckus. Then you grab the stick off her plate, and we all run like hell to the barbecue restaurant. Makoto-san, can you rig up a trip wire across the front so that anyone chasing after us is slowed down?"

"Not a problem, hold on, Naruto give me your Hitai-ate, they may be less inclined to cause a fuss now that you're a ninja. Misu-san do you think you can pull this off?"

"Please this will be a piece of cake." With that Misu strolled into the makeshift restaurant.

Less than three minutes later Naruto walked into the restaurant with his head bare calling for a snack. "What do you think your doing in here Demon" called the owner as he moved around the counter to confront the child. "You have no business being in here!"

"I just wanted to try your Dango." Said Naruto knowing what would come next.

As predicted the owner leaned back and launched a punch at Naruto yelling, "get out of my stall you filthy demon." Naruto managed to duck underneath the punch, and spent a few seconds dodging other attempts by the owner until he had seen Misu make her exit. At that point he ran as fast as he could into the street and towards the barbecue restaurant.

It took all of two minutes before Anko realized that some of her precious Dango was missing. The fight had distracted her, she was actually thinking of stepping in, as somewhat of a village outcast herself she did not like the way the owner was treating Naruto, he also had that friend who could talk to snakes and that was pretty cool, but the boy was handling himself well and the fat owner had not managed to land a blow yet. She did made a vow though not to eat at this stall again. It was only after she turned back to her food and noticed some was missing did she remember that Naruto had just graduated yesterday from the academy, and would be taking his test today, and yet for some reason was not wearing his Hitai-ate. With a loud string of curses She tore out of the store, jumping over the tripwire that she saw someone had placed there and went genin hunting. Up on the rooftops it was easy to spot Naruto's bright orange clothing, and within two minutes of noticing the missing food she was after them.

As they turned down the final street they saw the restaurant only thirty meters away. It was at that precise moment that a kunai went flying past Makoto's ear to embed itself in a doorpost a few feet in front of him. Looking over his shoulder he saw one pissed off kunoichi bearing down on them. "Guys, that Anko woman is about fifteen meters behind us and she is running faster than we are" he said his voice betraying a hint of fear.

"Then we better run faster then. Misu-san you have long legs and the Dango, run full out to the restaurant and get that to Hamaki-sensei. Makoto, run another ten meters and then turn around and face her, I will try and stop her here." With that Naruto fell forward into a roll and came up a few feet away facing the opposite direction ready to slow down the angry kunoichi. As she approached Naruto settled into a Taijutsu stance, ready to fight, only to find snakes shoot out of her arm and quickly wrap him up rendering him useless in a matter of seconds.

"Stupid boy did not know who he was trying to stop, I will come back for you in a minutes" Said the woman in a surprisingly sweet voice before she ran after his new friends. All tied up by snakes Naruto first tried to use the Nawanuke no Jutsu* only to find out that while it worked well when you were tied up by ropes it was useless against snakes.

Makoto grabbed a pole that a local jewelry vendor was using to hold up the awning in front of his store and, grabbing it with one hand dived to the side, swinging around it to face his opponent. He was surprised to see Naruto already on the ground, 'wow' thought the boy 'I thought I would have more time to prepare than …' Before he could even finish his thought she was on him and with a quick hop she turned her run into a kick and sent the boy flying into the pole, collapsing the awning over him and allowing her to continue the chase after her quarry.

Misu had just crossed the threshold of the restaurant and saw her new sensei sitting at a booth five feet away when she felt an arm on her shoulder. "Just where do you think you are going with my dango little girl?" Misu turned to see Mitarashi Anko standing in front of her, kunai drawn, with a sadistic little smile on her face. With no other move left Misu threw the dango at her sensei and then dove at the crazy kunoichi hoping to tackle her to the ground and stop her from intercepting their objective. Anko though did not become a Special Jonin by being bad at her job. She calmly sidestepped the girl, punching her in the small of the back to help her go down and ran after her favourite snack. Just as she was about to grab it though it was snatched out of the air by one Mimura Hamaki.

Hamaki was impressed by his new students, they had not only worked together to find their target but they had then made sure to get the target in question exactly where it needed to go, namely his hand. In all honesty the best he had actually hoped for was to hear about three Genin who had gotten severly beaten in a dango stand. "Anko-san, why are you attacking my genin?" He asked, it was now time to difuse the situation.

"They stole my dango Hamaki, and for that they must pay." The young woman.

"Well here let me make it up to you, have mine" he said as he offered his newly acquired snack to the snake mistress.

"So I take it you set them up to this prank?" She said turning her knife towards the older jonin, getting ready to launch herself at him.

"Yes I think it was an effective test of their skills" at this he looked outside at two of his wards, "and I see I still have a lot of work to do."

"They were pretty good at getting it away from me, but they need work on the escaping bit." Anko said as she bit off one of the dumplings. "You do know that as payment for this I expect to be allowed to help you train them at least once." Anko's training methods were famous among the Jonin, and Hamaki knew that his students were not going to thank him when she showed up to help.

"I know Anko-san, now can you release the boys so that I can congratulate them and treat them to diner for all their hard work?"

"Whoops, silly me I forgot." Anko replied as she quickly caused all the snakes to disappear in a cloud of smoke. Upon feeling himself become free Naruto jumped up and went to help Makoto before entering the restaurant.

"Congratulations kids, you pass" said Hamaki as Naruto and Makoto walked into the restaurant. Once again though there was trouble. As soon as the restaurant manager saw who was entering his establishment he moved to throw him out. This time though he was stopped by Hamaki. "Just what do you think you're doing?" the Jonin asked.

"That boy cannot eat in here. If he does I will lose half my customers." The owner replied, he did not hate the boy as most of the rest of the village did, but he did understand the level of hatred they had for him.

"Are you refusing to serve a ninja of Konoha?" Hamaki said in a threatening tone. He was shocked. It constantly surprised him how stupid the civilians who lived in Konoha could be. While at the same time Naruto remembered his Hitai-ate and quickly tied it back on.

Realising that refusing to serve a ninja would mean that the Hokage would order a boycott of his restaurant, leading to a drop in about forty percent of his business. The owner finally discovered the meaning of being between a rock and a hard place. After several seconds of hemming and hawing the man finally responded, "no, of course not, please let me show you to a table."

As the four people sat around the table watching the meat grill in front of them Hamaki set out the schedule they would now follow. "Alright you three, now that your out of the academy we are really going to start working. Now you three are Genin, I hope that after what you just experienced you realise what that means. You kid's all got taken down in a couple of seconds and Mitarashi-san didn't even break a sweat doing it. With your level of training you can probably beat a bandit one-on-one who has been living in the woods and probably spent his childhood working on his family farm. Against anyone who has trained most of their life to fight, or a group of bandits you will, in your present condition, die. Now your day will start at training field five at eight o'clock in the morning. We will work on team exercises at the beginning so that the three of you can work together to take down a superior enemy, or at least hold them off until you can all escape. You each have areas of weakness that you need to learn to deal with, for example Naruto, you're Taijutsu needs a lot of work, and your Chakra control is really weak. Once you have that down I will start working on individual skill development, and on infiltration techniques. Lastly two days a week we will devote to doing missions, at the start it will be mainly D-rank missions, but after a while when I think you are good enough we will move on to C-rank missions. Let me state that will take several months, otherwise I will end up doing all the work, and if I wanted to do all the work myself I wouldn't have taken a Genin team. Understood?" Having finished his speech Hamaki picked up a piece of chicken and commenced eating.

As the meal was ending Hamaki ordered them to go to the Hokage tower. "It is time to get yourselves registered as official Genin of Konoha. You will go to the tower, fill out some paper work, and have your picture taken. I will see you tomorrow at the training ground."

Naruto had just finished having his picture taken when the Hokage called him into his office. "Naruto, close the door behind you and take a seat will you?" As soon as Naruto had done this the Hokage made a certain hand seal, and suddenly three plumes of smoke appeared as the Anbu bodyguards that were on duty in his office Shunshined away. "Naruto I have something important to tell you, there are a lot of secrets that many people in this village have been keeping from you, some of them I am not going to mention until after you achieve the rank of Chunin. This much I will tell you though, Naruto do you know why so many of the people in the village seem to hate you?" Seeing Naruto, who at this point looked to shocked to speak, shake his head the Hokage continued. "Naruto, what is your birthday?"

It took Naruto a second to reply as he overcame the shock of what he was about to be told, "the 10th of October Ojii-san."

"And Naruto do you know of any other important events that happened on that date?"

"Of course every year they celebrate the death of the Kyubi."

"Naruto the Kyubi did not die, a being of such power cannot be killed so easily, in the same way that if you ever receive a summoning contract with a creature, and it falls in battle, it does not die but rather it returns to the place where it comes from to recuperate and heal. Instead the Yondaime Hokage used his knowledge of seals, in which he was an expert, and sealed the Kyubi inside you. He had to seal it inside a child who was newborn, someone whose Chakra pathways had not really had a chance to develop, and he chose you. You may have noticed the seals that display on your stomach whenever you channel enough chakra, those are the seals of the Kyubi's prison."

Naruto was shocked, for a fairly long time there was nothing he could do as he slowly absorbed the information. 'That is why everyone calls me demon. That is why they hate me. Can't they see the difference between me and the Kyubi?' "Ojii-san, why did he choose me? What was wrong with me?" he asked in a quiet voice as tears started to stream down his face.

"Nothing is wrong with you Naruto. He had a very good reason for choosing you, and not because there was anything wrong with you. When he went to face the Kyubi he knew he would die doing this, and asked the village to treat you as a hero for having to bear this burden. Unfortunately they did not listen." The Hokage said as he tried to comfort the boy. "Listen Naruto, I told you this for a reason. You need to become strong. The seal is powered by your life and your chakra, if you become weak in a fight, the seal will weaken, then the Kyubi could break free. If on the other hand you die, the Kyubi will be sent back to the land where he comes from to recuperate, but will eventually return. The seals also draw out his chakra, granting you some of his power, it is part of the reason you have such bad chakra control. Many villages have Jinchuriki like you, and they turn into the greatest fighters of the village by relying on their demon, I am asking you to become great in spite of the demon, so you will only be forced to use its power when you truly need it."

Another burden had been laid at Naruto's feet. Now it was up to him to decide what to do about it. "How many people know I contain the Kyubi Ojii-san?"

"By my reckoning, all the people who were over sixteen at the time of the attack. As soon as I could I passed a law making the fate of the demon an S-class secret so that no one would could tell their children, only you are allowed to tell someone the secret. I had hoped that by doing this I could stop the spread of hate from also taking route in the younger generations."

'So Zuki-san, Teuchi-san, and Iruka-san all know about the demon, and unlike the rest of the village treat me nice… They saw how the rest of the village treated me, and probably lost a lot of friends too…' the Hokage could see when finally Naruto reached a decision, 'I will show my friends that their trust in me is well placed, I will not let them down' "Alright Ojii-san I will make sure to train extremely hard, if you promise to tell me the whole truth once I become Chunin."

The Hokage turned to his desk and picked up an old scroll that was lying on top of it, "Naruto, everything I have to tell you is written in this scroll that is sealed with a blood seal. It was written by the Yondaime, and it is addressed to you. I will hand it to you with your Chunin vest when you attain the rank."

"Also I need a set of weights that I can wear, like Maito Gai has, this way I can train even when I am not training."

Hearing this the Hokage chuckled, 'trust Naruto to not do anything half way' "That sounds fair to me Naruto, come with me we will go buy you a pair right now." With that the Hokage started heading out of the room with Naruto trailing behind him.

After walking down the main road for a few minutes the two finally stopped at a fairly plain looking store. Walking in the clerk behind the counter was happily surprised to see the Hokage walk into his store, "Hokage-sama how are you doing today?" the clerk asked.

"I am doing fine. We came in here today because Naruto needs a set of ankle and wrist weights for training." Said the Hokage with a smile.

"Of course right this way. This would be the set I recommend," said the man as he held up a wide strap with lots of pockets around it which were closed by a flap that was secured with a button. "As you can see each weight case holds up to five weight bars, with the ones for the legs being twice the size as the arm weights. We also make the weights out of different materials so that each bar is the same size. This is the set I would recommend for a beginner."

"Wonderful that's perfect, I'll take it, with a full set of weights going up to forty pounds for each arm, and fifty for each leg. Can you have them delivered to this address" The Hokage asked writing down Naruto's address. As he completed his purchase the old man turned to Naruto, "Naruto I'm only buying you these weights because I expect a lot from you. I want you to work hard, and make yourself the best ninja you can be."

"Don't worry Ojii-san, after all what else do I have to do?" Naruto replied with a grin. By the time Naruto got home that evening the weights were sitting outside his door. Trying them on for size Naruto added weight after weight until it started to feel uncomfortable for him, and then went about his normal nightly ritual before going to bed.

Waking up in the morning Naruto's arms and legs hurt. It felt like he could not move his arms past the halfway point either out or in, and his shoulders caused him a small amount of pain every time he tried to lift his arms over his head. 'I guess that is what Ojii-san meant when he warned me about using too much weight. I suppose I'm not ready for all this yet.' Moving slowly Naruto swapped out the heavier weights for much lighter ones before trying to move through his morning stretches and going to meet with the rest of the team at the training ground.

"Good Morning everyone!" Hamaki shouted as he hopped down from a tree once everyone was assembled. "We are going to start with a warm-up, I want ten laps around the training ground…Starting Now." With that all three of his students let out a groan before starting to jog. After half a lap Hamaki was getting mad. "When I want you doing laps, I want you running them!" Hamaki shouted as he reached into his holster and withdrew some kunai. He then proceeded to throw the Kunai directly at them forcing the kids to run to avoid being hit. This was especially problematic for Naruto, for whom each step this morning was quite painful, causing him to be bringing up the rear on this run, and after his third lap those weights he was wearing started to become noticeable. As each Genin finished their third lap they would collapse on the ground, breathing heavily. As soon as Naruto's knees touched the dirt however Hamaki had them standing up again and moving onto the next exercise jumping jacks.

After twenty minutes more minutes of exercise Hamaki could not take it anymore. "OK, everyone stop. I need to know, Naruto what is with your orange clothing? Do you realise how ridiculous you look. For a reconnaissance team that clothing is completely inappropriate. Our targets will see you coming a mile away!" Naruto looked really embarrassed at this outburst. He knew that the orange jumpsuit was not the greatest fashion statement in the world, although it had become his favorite colour, but how was he supposed to explain to this man that he could not buy anything else. Naruto quickly tried to mumble something out under his breath while kicking at some of the dirt on the ground. "What? Speak up boy." Hamaki said.

"I can't afford anything else, and these jumpsuits are very durable."

"What do you mean you can't afford anything else, I have been in the only store that sells those suits, and they are dreadfully overpriced, that and how ugly they are is why no one buys them." Hamaki replied.

Naruto had finally had enough, his body hurt from using the weights last night, and now he was being singled out in front of his new teammates. "Yeah well that store is the only clothing store in Konoha that will let me buy anything, and the only thing I am allowed to buy there is this stupid jumpsuit. So what else am I suppose to damn well do Sensei?" Naruto shouted back, loading the last word with as much scorn as he felt he could safely put into it.

Makoto and Misu were surprised that Naruto would talk like that to their Jonin-sensei, they had seen yesterday what the village seemed to think of him, so while they were horrified by the shopping story they were not surprised by it. Hamaki on the other hand was by nature a quiet person. He did not pay much attention to the people around him, hoping they would do the same. He kept abrest of issues outside the village, as those could affect his missions, but the every day life of a Konoha citizen was not something he was overly interested in. He knew that certain people did not like the boy and why, but had not until this second realized the full effects of it. "Well we shall see about that. All right you three were going on a shopping trip." With that Hamaki marched out of the training grounds and towards the shopping district of the village.

"Eventually you will need to invest in decent gear, but I am not going to buy your ninja equipment for you." Hamaki said as they came to a stop in the middle of the shopping district. "These are the tools of your trade and so I expect all three of you to save up and get your own equipment as we do the D-rank missions. However Naruto, I will buy you two outfits of regular clothes so that you can at least train in something and have something to wear that is not so ridiculous." With that remark Hamaki walked into a clothing store with Naruto in tow and the rest of the team trailing behind.

Upon seeing a Jonin walking through the front door the clerk immediately plastered on a smile and went out to greet the customer, only to suddenly stop short as soon as he saw the boy next to him. "Boy, get out of here, you know we don't allow demons in our store." The man said almost shouting. "Excuse me sir, let me take out this trash and I will be right with you." The clerk said turning briefly to Hamaki.

Upon hearing this the Jonin grabbed the man by the arm and pushed him into the nearby wall. "You lay your hand on one of my students or any ninja of Konoha and you will regret it." Hamaki said in a quiet but very threatening tone.

A sudden look of fear passed over the man as he noticed the Hitai-ate on top of Naruto's forehead, "…look I don't want any trouble but the owner of this establishment has left instructions that he isn't to be served. We are supposed to direct him to the store with the jumpsuits." The man replied quickly, stammering a little at first.

"Warn your owner that Naruto is now a ninja of Konoha, attacking him, or refusing him service while still expecting his protection is not going to sit well with the Hokage, and any store that wants to get much repeat business from ninjas of this village had better change their attitude." Hamaki said sternly driving his point home with a shove. "Naruto, let us go to your usual store, and see if we can't buy you some normal clothing there."

Arriving at the store that made a modest income by selling Naruto his orange jumpsuits, Naruto saw the owner walk out of the back. He was a fat man with greasy hair, who walked right up to the Jonin in the room."Good morning sir how can I help you today?" He asked. "I wish to buy this boy some decent clothing, so that we can start burning his orange jumpsuits." Hamaki replied in a slightly frustrated tone, hoping the man would not try and argue the point, the entire excursion was already taking longer than he had expected. "Well sir I don't know what you have against the jumpsuits, they are extremely durable, warm…" the man said while trying not to annoy the angry Jonin, until he was cut off.

"And point him out as a target to his enemies from up to six miles away." Hamaki said cutting the man off. "Listen we just need to buy a couple of shirts and some pants and a decent jacket. I don't want to see any bright or shiny colours. Everything should be dark, or at the very least dull, and should be a good fit. Now is there going to be any problems with this?" Hamaki said as he stared around the shop.

"No sir, I think we can work within those constraints." The man quickly replied now just trying to get them out of his store as quickly as possible. Quickly the man started pulling down clothes showing them various styles until they came up with two sets of clothing. Two pairs of trousers, one in a dark brown and the other in dark blue, two shirts, one in a dark green and the other a tan colour, and a black lightweight jacket. For the first time in the last few years Naruto looked more or less like everyone else in Konoha. As he stepped out into the street in one of his new sets of clothes he felt like a new man. He also noticed that a lot less people were staring at him the way they usually did. To the outside world he was no longer standing out like a sore thumb, and in these muted colours he was able to fade into the background before some people could fully identify him.

"Now that that is taken care of prepare for more training. Everyone back to the training field." Hamaki called. This time he did not need to encourage the three Genin as they made good time back to the field. They spent the rest of the morning working on general fitness, and the afternoon on team building exercises. At the end of the day Hamaki turned to his new team, "You had better get used to this, today was the first day and we went easy. Now I will see you all tomorrow." With that the Jonin shunshined away while the others started to stumble home needing to rest.

* * *

Harry was sitting in his room finishing up the first reading of his potions text book. As he closed the book he picked up a quill and started to make some notes on a piece of parchment that was already covered in notes. Almost as soon as he started, he stopped, let out a light curse, then dipped the quill into a pot of ink before continuing. 'Tomorrow I am going out and buying a decent fountain pen. I am not going through seven years of schooling using a damn quill.' He had now skimmed through several of the books and was making notes on questions he had and things he still needed to buy. Tomorrow was going to be a big shopping day.

The next day Harry woke up at the usual time and quickly made breakfast. As soon as the Dursleys had finished eating Harry ran down the street with his new book bag bouncing against his leg and one of Dudley's old hoodies pulled up to hide his scar, which he had taken the extra precaution of hiding with a large bandage. As soon as he was out of sight of the house out came his wand as he summoned the night bus. "Leaky Cauldron please Stan" Harry said as he boarded the triple-decker bus handed over his fair and sat down. Fifteen minutes later Harry got off the bus and headed into Diagon Alley. His first stop was Gringotts bank. At that time in the morning the bank was almost completely empty. Harry walked up to one of the goblins behind the counter and said, "Hello, I'm Harry Potter and I would like to see a full reckoning of the Potter account."

"One moment sir" The goblin asked with a slight sneer that most goblins seemed to have when dealing with humans. The goblin then made a strange noise, and a few seconds later Harry saw Griphook, come running in from the back. The two talked for a few seconds until the older one turned saying, "If you would follow young Griphook here he can take care of all your needs."

"Hey Griphook, nice to see you again." Harry commented as they walked into a small room off the main hallway, where a large book with a picture of a stag on it was laid out.

"Mr. Potter" Griphook acknowledged with a slight bow, "now then I was told you wanted a full account of your holdings." He said as he opened the book and turned to a page only half full with cramped handwriting and numbers running down a column.

"That is correct, I want to make sure I spend my money wisely and don't end up broke with two more years of school to go."

"Well according to the ledger, you now have sixty eight thousand seven hundred and thirty two galleons, thirteen sickles, and four knuts."

"Wow, so I could go ahead and pay for all seven years of schooling right away and still have thirty three thousand and some odd galleons for any other purchases. That is," at this point Harry pulled out a piece of parchment and a pencil, "around four thousand eight hundred a year." Harry stared at that number for a minute thinking before turning back to the helpful goblin, "is that a decent amount? Also my uncle is always grumbling about taxes, do I have to worry about that" Harry asked as he worried about being able to afford everything he thought he would need. While he knew the prices of food at the grocery store, he had never really gone shopping for anything else and so did not know how far his money would go, especially not in the wizarding world.

"Since you don't have to pay any muggle taxes currently, you only have to worry about the Ministry of Magic ones, and that is run mainly on a sales tax. So all taxes come out of when you buy something, and as for the money issue, it is nothing you really have to worry about, your Trust vault is refilled with an extra two thousand galleons on your birthday from the main Potter vault."

At this news Harry had to take a step back, "There is a main Potter vault?" Harry asked in a surprised tone. 'McGonagall never said anything about a main vault. I wonder if she knew?'

"The Potters are an ancient and noble family, they were one of the first families to put their money back into Gringotts after we were granted complete autonomy in 1865." The goblin replied as if this was everyday knowledge.

"Ancient and Noble, like I have a title? And should I have a key to that vault?" Harry asked, wondering why he had not been taken to that vault the other day.

"No, until you reach seventeen, the age of majority you cannot access that vault, as to the title, we wouldn't know, it is hardly a concern of Gringotts what you humans decide to call yourselves." Griphook replied.

"Thank you Griphook, also, do you know why one of my teachers happened to have my vault key?" Harry had found it suspicious on his last trip to Gringotts that Professor McGonagall had been able to produce his key as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Years of living with the Dursleys had made sure he noticed such things.

"Actually she probably just got it from Dumbledore, it says here that he is your Magical Guardian, and therefore would have had access to your vault. It looks like up until this year he has made about one stop a year." Said Griphook after checking the ledger for a minute.

'So the Headmaster of the school I am going to is also my guardian.' Thought Harry with a pensive look on his face. All of a sudden his features changed to anger though, 'that means he must have known where I was living, heck he probably put me with those people.'

"Griphook," Harry asked trying to keep the anger out of his voice, "Is there any mention of him taking anything from my Trust vault?"

"No money was taken, after each leaving the same amount of money remained, although shortly after your parents died he came and picked up an old cloak."

'That could be fairly innocent, a reminder of a late friend. Although I will have to remember that.' Harry thought before turning back to Griphook, "Thank you very much Griphook, now is there any way of taking out money without having to go down to my vault?"

"Of course, we keep money on hand, just tell us how much you want and we can give it to you right here, and deduct it from your vault later on today. Or out at a shop if you run up too high a bill they will write you a receipt and you can write your name and add a drop of blood to the bill, and we will transfer the money to their account when they bring the receipt in, and owl you a record of the transaction so you know how much was taken, for either a ten galleon or ten percent fee depending on which is higher."

"Wonderful in that case may I have another three hundred galleons." fifteen hundred pounds should be enough to cover any expenses no matter what he ended up buying over the next few days.

As soon as he had collected his money Harry left Gringotts and headed to one of the small cafés that were scattered around the alley. He had a lot of purchases to make over the next few days, and a lot of exploring to do, both of London proper and of magical London. "Excuse me" Harry asked the young waitress who was probably also a Hogwarts student, "I am new to Diagon Alley, can you tell me if there is a magical library nearby?"

"Oh you must be a muggle getting ready for your first trip to Hogwarts. Outside of the family libraries that most families collect, the only libraries are either professional ones, or the library at Hogwarts." The waitress replied trying to be nice.

"Thank you very much, In that case do you know of any secondhand bookstores?"

"Secondhand bookstores, you mean buying books that had been owned by someone else. Not likely, magic is a powerful force, and you can never know what spells may be placed on somebody elses books." The girl replied shocked that the boy had thought to buy such things. Harry finished his cup of tea and made his way to Flourish and Blotts.

"Hello young man, how can we help you today?" Said an older gentleman with his glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

"Well I am in desperate need of several books, and some information." Harry replied. "You see up till now I have been raised by muggles and I was shocked to discover that the wizarding world does not have many libraries."

"Yes most muggles are surprised, you see the reason there are so few libraries is because of the large number of checks that any book has to go through before a library could safely lend it again. After all you never know what the last person may have done to a book. This in turn means that only certain highly trained people can actually become magical librarians. It is also seen as fairly dull work by many which is why few people are willing to go through the training. The skill is in high demand, but most family solve the problem by accruing their own collections, knowing at least their books wont harm them… You know I hear a few of the less reputable store owners down in Knockturn Alley will occasionally sell books of unknown origin there, and that is when you hear of a new case at St. Mungoes." The man ended with a knowing look, and thanks to Harry's reading of the fairly short book about the wizarding world, he knew about Britain's only major magical hospital. "Now then anything else I can help you with my lad?

"Well, I was talking to one of my friends about magic, and he mentioned something about mind magics, do you know what he was talking about?" Asked Harry as he thought back to Naruto's last letter and his mention of Genjutsu.

"Aahhh That would be Legilimency, very distasteful stuff, allows you to read the minds of your victims, no one really studies it anymore as a few centuries ago everyone worked hard on their Occlumency and the skill became useless."

"Wonderful so you would have some books on Occlumency then? I will need the best one you have for the beginner and intermediate level."

"Actually we don't keep that many on hand," the man said as he wandered off towards the back of the store stopping every second to adjust a row of books, "you see once Legilimency pretty much died out as a practice most people stopped seeing the point in working on their Occlumency. But we do have some, these two are supposed to be the best." The man said as he handed Harry two tomes off a shelf that had obviously not been dusted in some time.

This news thrilled Harry, 'If this works like he says it does maybe it will protect against Genjutsu as well. Naruto may not be able to use the skill but at least this way he can defend against it.' Harry went on to spend another hour wandering around the store stopping every now and then to pick up a book and read the first few pages. Finally he brought two more to the counter, a copy of Hogwarts a History, an Introduction to self defense spells.

With his purchases firmly tucked away in his book bag Harry walked off down the street to see what else Diagon Alley had to offer. He saw a joke shop that he knew at some point he needed to check out, there was a sweet shop, but Harry had never had much of a sweet tooth, while the odd chocolate bar was nice he would take a larger proper meal over gorging oneself on dessert any day of the week, to be honest there were more than a few times when he would have just liked a medium sized meal. That was when he saw it, an actual opticians. The glasses that he had now were bought at the local pharmacy chosen by trial and error, but he could now afford a real pair of glasses, and who knows what they could do with magic. Walking in Harry saw a young woman who looked to be in her early thirties working behind a desk fiddling with a pair of glasses. Harry took the time to look around the shop, and try his hand at an eye chart they had set up against a back wall until she was done. "Can I help you?" the woman asked.

"Yes I need new glasses can you help me, that is unless you know something that will cure my vision completely?" Harry asked not quite sure what the procedures were going to be in a magical opticians.

"unfortunately not" she answered with a small laugh, "but your first request shouldn't be a problem, Just take your glasses off" she said as she led him back to the eye chart, "now stand behind this line and with one eye covered up, read the fifth line please." She then had Harry repeat the process with the other eye. She took down a few notes, then turned and started to wave her wand at Harry's face, while a quill and parchment started writing of its own accord. "Now then, do you wish to keep the same frames, or are you going to want new ones?" She asked when she had finished waving her wand around.

"Oh definitely new ones please" said Harry as he looked down at the cheap plastic frames he had been using before. Walking around the store Harry finally found a pair he liked they were thin metal ones with yellow frames and metal coloured arms. Placing them on his face he turned to the woman, "what do you think?"

"Not bad at all, a very good look on you, you have good taste for a boy." She replied smiling at him.

"Thank you. Just out of curiosity, along with just getting lenses that will properly correct my vision, are there any spells you can put on the glasses?"

"Well I normally recommend to those who ask, an impervious charm on them so they deflect anything coming at them, it is handy in the rain and if you are working with potions as you wont have to worry about your glasses fogging up, or the juices of whatever you are chopping up squirting into your eyes. I also recommend a strengthening charm so they are less likely to break. I can also put on a holding charm so that they wont fall off if you are flying with them on."

"Nothing else, no ability to see through walls, or see through magical illusions, at least better night vision?" Harry asked hopefully.

"an enhanced night vision I can actually do, for the rest, while I can, and do for special order, curse-breakers and people like that, I wouldn't on a regular pair of glasses. Remember these charms that are put on the glasses last the lifetime of the glasses. The spells are powered using your own magic, If you were to wear glasses like you are asking about, for more than about forty five minutes a day you would pass out with magical exhaustion… But if you are looking for something with a lot of bells and whistles, maybe you would like a pair of Omnioculars. They have enough magic to perform their functions for six months before they need to be recharged." The woman said leading Harry over to a pair of odd looking binoculars.

"What is so special about them asked Harry as he studied them, gently fingering one of the knobs that was attached to it."

"They can record what you are looking at, so that you can watch it at a slower speed, or watch it later if you wish. They are very popular with quidditch fanatics who want to be able to study the game later or see what is going on during the game better."

This idea really intrigued Harry. He did not know what he would use them for at the moment but he was sure an idea would come to him. "How much recording time can they hold, and how easy are they to record?" Harry asked.

"They can record up to two hours of viewing, and to recharge all you need to do is insert your wand here, and repeat this incantation" she said handing him a piece of paper.

"Cool!" said Harry as he stared at the binoculars with a look of awe on his face. "I will take two of those, and can I also buy a second pair of glasses in the same style frames but with darkened lenses for sunny days, and I will take the three charms you talked about on both pairs." Harry said excitedly.

"Not a problem, the total for all that will be forty galleons, and I should have your glasses ready in about three hours."

"Thank you I shall return." After that dramatic statement Harry walked out of the store and back to the Leaky Cauldron. He had poked his head into most of the shops in Diagon Alley, and although he knew he needed an owl he did not want to buy one until the end of the day. Right now he needed to head into normal London.

Harry's first stop was a decent department store, where Harry purchased a fountain pen, so the teachers wouldn't notice him not using a quill for homework, and all the usual things a student needs, pencils, rulers, highlighters for his books and the like. Next he went into a few clothing stores and bought himself a complete wardrobe that was actually in his size, along with some decent clothes for exercising. Lastly, after looking over the subjects he would be studying at Hogwarts he went and purchased some books on science and maths so that he would be able to keep up with his normal education. Why the magical world did not think that teaching mathematics was a good idea was beyond Harry.

By this point it was almost past lunchtime. There was one thing Harry had been wanting to try for years now. Yesterday when everyone else was out of the house Harry had called several Japanese stores in London and asked for their recommendations on the best place to eat. For the last few years he had studied Japanese culture and now he had the chance to try their food. Leaving the bookstore Harry hailed a cab and gave the driver the address he had come across yesterday, and twenty minutes later he was walking into a restaurant ready to try Ramen for the first time. "One bowl of miso and one bowl of pork ramen please" Harry told the waiter as soon as he sat down.

"Are you sure, one bowl is normally enough even for our older guests." The waiter replied.

"yup, one bowl of each please." Harry replied.

The bowls soon arrived and Harry dove in.

'well I definitely like the pork more than the miso' thought Harry as he stumbled away from the table. 'If the portion sizes are similar I don't know how Naruto eats as much as he says he does. Good thing I am almost done will all the shopping I planned to do today, 'cause all I want to do now is nap.' With that Harry made his way back to Diagon Alley, picked up his purchases at the opticians, before going to his last stop at Eeylops Owl Emporium.

Harry walked into a darkly lit shop with the sound of owls hooting and screeching coming from almost every direction. "Hello?" Harry called out questioningly, thankful for the new glasses that let him see around the store, "Anyone there?"

"Hello son, what can I do for you today?" Said a man as he walked up to him.

"I need an owl, and I need to know something about owl post." Harry replied

"Well then my boy you have come to the right place. What do you want to know?"

"I have a friend who lives overseas, I take the owls cannot fly all the way there to drop off a letter or a parcel, also he's a muggle." Harry wasn't sure that owl post could get to the elemental countries, since they hid themselves from the rest of the world magical world, but the regular post eventually did.

"Don't worry, you aren't the first boy with this problem. All you do is write the address on the envelope or parcel, and put that…what do the muggles call it, the thing they use to pay for post…" the man asked looking flustered.

"Stamps?" Suggested Harry.

"That's it, Stamps! You stamp the parcel like a regular package, your owl drops the package off at a Ministry of Magic department that connects to an actual post office. When packages come in they mail it with a special… postcode? Yep postcode which directs it back to the ministry of magic office where someone gives the package to an Owl who brings it to you. At most you should only see an extra two days for the package to get to its final destination."

"Awesome, in which case I definitely need an owl." Harry said happy that moving to Hogwarts would not really slow down his correspondence.

The man let out a little chuckle as he waved at the room around him, "I think we can accommodate you there. Let's walk around and see if we see anything that strikes ye' fancy."

The two began to walk around the store looking at the different birds, stopping every now and then to pet a different owl and feed it a treat. It was on their second loop of the shop when Harry saw a beautiful white one, with dark grey dashes running across it, perched up on the rafters in the back with it's eyes closed, making no sounds at all. The owl reminded Harry of himself in the way it was attempting to go un-noticed. "What about that white one up there?" Harry said turning to the man.

"That Snowy? We have had her in the shop for almost a year now and she has done her best to hide from almost everyone. If you want her though I can let you have her for four galleons." The man said as he looked up at the bird in question.

"I'll take her."

As the man went and got a step ladder and a cage to put the owl in Harry walked around the room. "If you're getting the owl, I would recommend getting a perch as well and maybe some owl treats, I don't think she is going to take to the cage very well." The man remarked offering some constructive advice as well as hoping to up-sell the customer.

"Thank you, I will take a large bag of the treats, and a heavy wooden perch as well. Is there anything I need to do so she doesn't just fly away and never come back?" Harry asked not sure why the owl would want to stay around.

"Yup, she is a trained magical post owl already, but if you want her to be yours and not a family owl, you need to stay in the same room as her for two days and make sure not to let her out, feed her and make sure she has water. Also make sure no one else comes in the room. Otherwise she may also see them as part of her new family. If you want her as a family owl, you need to do the same thing, but you can let her roam the house so she can meet everyone, and have them take turns feeding and watering her. You will also need to come up with a name for her and call her that fairly frequently over the next two days."

"Thank's sir, now what do I owe you?"

"Well four galleons for the bird, the perch is ten sickles, and another nine for the owl treats, comes to five galleons and two sickles, and here is the postcode to give your friends and family members." Harry paid the man, picked up the bird and went out to grab the night bus home. Luckily arriving home Harry found his family out, and was able to carry his bird up to his room where he closed and locked all the doors and windows before letting the beautiful owl out of her cage.

After dinner Harry was upstairs starting to write a letter to Naruto. Earlier while looking through A History of Magic Harry had settled on the name Hedwig for his new friend, who was now perched in the other corner of the room trying once again to remain un-noticed. Now while there was still time Harry told Naruto about how they would be corresponding in the future and everything he had discovered, especially the potential Genjutsu defense, once Harry himself had mastered it well enough to know it might work, and to be able to translate the book. Every few minutes Harry would turn, look at Hedwig, call her name and open his hand which contained some owl treats. There were a few occasions where he was lucky and she would come and eat, and one occasion where she almost bit his finger off, but they seemed to understand each other well enough. After that Harry turned to the beginner version of one of his new Occlumency books. The first few chapters of the book laid out ways to get into a meditative state, something Harry was already doing on a nightly basis, but everything after chapter four was new to him. It was about learning the ability to function properly while seemingly keeping his mind empty. After reading for a few more minutes and double checking a few paragraphs Harry sat at his desk and started to meditate.

* * *

Naruto had promised Harry he would send him the next Taijutsu scroll and so while waiting for Harry's blood to arrive Naruto sat at his desk and carefully to copy out the scroll in front of him. He got a little done every day, but unfortunately life was no longer like it had been at the academy. He no longer had as much time to write Harry. Naruto was also working on his control. As well as the leaf that was currently resting on top of his Hitai-ate Naruto was trying to get another one to stick to the palm of his left hand, leaving the right one open for copying. Training today had been hard, using the weights did not make his life any easier, but it had now been several days and he was getting used to the extra pounds strapped to his wrists and ankles, to the point where he could now keep up with his teammates. 'Maybe it was time to add more weight' Naruto thought as he took a small break from his copying. As he got up to stretch the leaf in his hand fell to the ground, as Naruto went to pick it up another thought occurred to him, 'I also need to remember to mention chakra control exercises to Harry.' With that thought Naruto buckled down and got to writing.


	5. Chapter 5 First Days part 2

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis.

Some questions have been asked in the review section and I thought I would take the time to answer them here. Firstly, will Harry and Naruto ever meet? No, or at least, not that I have planned yet. I am thinking of having them meet possibly around book 6 six at the earliest, or afterwards (book 8 if I am still writing at that point), but my writing is fairly fluid, and something could happen that causes them to meet earlier.

How old is Naruto. As I understand it in cannon he is 12 when he becomes a Genin so I have him as being 11 right now.

Ch.5 First Days part 2.

It had now been about two weeks since Naruto had told Harry about chakra and his potential ability to learn Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and upper level Taijutsus like Naruto was doing. He was eager to pass more information on to his friend, and help him grown into the person he could be. Last night after returning from the library, where Naruto had been helping Zuki-san and playing Shogi, Naruto had discovered a new letter from Harry, containing the blood sample and something about getting accepted into a special magic school. 'This means that Harry might be receiving training like mine, we can compare notes and see how this place differs from the academy. Although I wonder why they start so late?' Naruto thought. That was why before the Hokage had even had his first cup of tea that morning Naruto was already banging on his door. "Ojii-san I've got blood sample you wanted." Naruto shouted as he ran into the office waving the letter above his head.

The Hokage looked up from the paperwork he was reading, "that's great Naruto. Leave the sample on my desk and come back this evening and I will show you how to create the seal. Right now I need to read these mission reports, and don't you have a meeting with your team soon?" Naruto suddenly blushed all over, embarrassed to have forgotten about his team, quickly ripped off the bottom of the letter which contained the blood sample, turned, and ran out of the office and towards the training grounds, going as fast as he could to make sure he wouldn't be late.

Naruto was grateful when training ended. He had not been able to fully concentrate all day, and so had made several stupid mistakes. He was now fairly tired from all the punishment laps he had had to run, was sporting several welts from kicks and punches he should have dodged with ease had he been paying attention. After dinner Naruto once again met up with the Hokage. "Naruto, now that we have his blood we can incorporate it into a seal," the old man said while slowly and carefully showing Naruto the correct brushstrokes, "You need to draw this seal, using his blood which I have rehydrated, and a new seal will emerge, that is the seal that you must copy exactly if you want him to be able to open the scroll." Naruto practiced the correct stroke marks for ten minutes until the Hokage declared them good enough. Carefully Naruto copied out the seal with the blood until the whole thing was complete. "Good job Naruto, now I need you to place your hand in the middle of the seal and channel some chakra into it." Naruto carefully followed the Hokage's instructions, and watched as the seal he had just drawn transformed into a new one. "Naruto, do you see these strokes here and here," the Hokage said showing Naruto specific aspects of the new seal, "these are the marks that what you are dealing with is a blood seal. Now, when you have finished a scroll and are about to send it to Harry all you need to do is to fasten the scroll closed in the usual way, then place a piece of paper with this seal on top of the scroll. Lastly once again place your hand on the seal and channel some chakra into the seal. It will bind around the scroll, only unwrapping when a drop of the correct blood is placed on the seal." Naruto took the new piece of paper home and spent the rest of the night working on drawing the seal exactly right. There was no room for error, and by the next day, he was finally able to do the seal from memory. He then placed the seals on Harry's new scrolls and dropped them off at the Hokage's office to be mailed before heading to the training ground.

* * *

It had now been a little over a month since Harry first received his Hogwarts letter and tomorrow he would be boarding the train to school for the first time. Hedwig was at this moment resting on her perch on Harry's desk instead of up near the ceiling like she used to. On around the fifth day she had moved there, and a week after that was the first time she had settled on his shoulder, which in turn prompted another trip to Diagon Alley to buy a leather shoulder pad he could wear inside his clothing, and to see if they sold a magic alarm clock that would work inside Hogwarts and would only wake up the specific user instead of a whole room (Harry wanted one for his early morning workouts). The rest of the time had been spent in study, in fact at this very moment Harry was finishing up the last chapter of Hogwarts A History as the morning rays streamed through the window, hitting his face and reminding him to get started on breakfast. Ever since McGonagall's visit his aunt and uncle had for the most part steered clear of him, so long as their meals were on the table on time, something Harry had appreciated, especially when he brought Hedwig home. It also gave Harry plenty of time to study. At this point he thought he was progressing fairly well with his Occlumency training, although without anyone to test him he could not really tell. He was also using all the time to work through his textbooks, using a pencil to work on the wand movements when they came up. Harry was looking forward to actually being able to use magic and see if what he thought he had learned would actually work. He was at least a few chapters into all the books he had bought, and had several notebooks already assigned to subjects ranging from Astronomy to Maths, to Transfiguration. All in all Harry felt ready for school to start.

He had just finished serving breakfast when the ringing of the doorbell caught his attention. "Hello Sam" Harry said as he opened the door.

"Good morning Harry, I've a package for ya'." The postman said handing Harry a brown box. "So what do you talk about with your pal over in Japan?"

"Oh this and that, the weather, school, and our relatives." Harry replied. Harry then returned to the kitchen to clean up. As soon as the breakfast was put away Harry trotted upstairs and opened up the package to discover two new scrolls. 'So this must be the Blood Seal Naruto mentioned' Harry said examining the symbol on the white background that was wrapped around each bundle. 'Well only one thing to do' with that Harry picked up a pocket knife that he bought with his quills and made a small cut along his palm and dripped some blood over each symbol, then watched in amazement as the white backgrounds disappeared and the scrolls sprung open.

'The first thing I need to research is how to heal cuts. There must be a fast magical way of healing this,' Harry thought as he held a paper napkin to his hand soaking up the blood while he waited for it to clot and the cut to start healing. After a few seconds Harry turned back to the documents, to reveal more diagrams and instructions. 'Wow, this is…Cool!' Harry thought as he slowly unrolled one of the scrolls. 'I am going to have to train much harder for this to work out.' A few minutes later Harry was still reading through the scrolls. 'All this Chakra stuff, I wonder if it is exactly the same thing as magic or if they are slightly different. I need to do some research…also they don't seem to use wands, is that the difference? I can't wait to get to the library at school.' Harry thought as he read about the chakra control exercises and how Naruto and his people used it. The rest of the day was spent mostly studying the new scrolls and getting his affairs in order for the train.

That night while everyone was eating Harry broached the subject of his trip to school. "Uncle Vernon, can I speak with you for a minute?"

"What do you want boy?" Vernon Dursley replied annoyed by the disturbance.

"Tomorrow is the first of September, and school starts on the first" Harry said gently reminding his uncle of a sore subject. "I am going to be away until at least Christmas time."

"They don't want you for longer?" Vernon asked with a slight sneer.

"I don't know, If I can I will definitely try. I just wanted you to be aware of that's all."

"See that you do. Can we give you a lift, don't you to be late for your train after all."

This generous offer surprised Harry and it took him to respond. On the one hand he wanted to spend as little time as possible with his family, on the other he did not want them to know about the Knight Bus. "Thank you uncle Vernon, that's kind of you."

"I just want to make sure you don't miss that train, otherwise we would be stuck with you, and the next thing you know we might get a visit from more of those people." Vernon said the sneer quickly working its way back into his voice as his fork went out to spear another sausage. "That's settled then, we leave here at nine sharp!" With that Vernon Dursley turned and headed into the living room to watch the telly and Harry made his way up to his room.

The next morning Harry woke up at the usual time and ran to his clearing, starting on some meditation exercises before going through the rest of his workout. It took a little longer today to find the right state of mind today, no surprise, the day being as important as it was for Harry. After that Harry ran through his morning workout, and started to work on the moves laid out in the scrolls. Lastly he called Hedwig down who was sitting on a nearby tree branch. "Hedwig, we are going to Hogwarts today. I don't want uncle Vernon to see you, can you fly to Hogwarts and meet me there?" The owl gave a quick nod of assent before flapping her wings and taking to the sky. A short while later Harry was back at number four, showered, packed, and cooking breakfast. "You ready boy?" Vernon snarled as he sat down to eat.

"Yes uncle Vernon, all packed and ready to go."

"Good boy, load up the car, I don't want to dillydally." With that Vernon turned to his bacon and eggs.

As soon as they arrived at Kings Cross station Harry jumped out and quickly loaded his trunk onto a nearby trolley, and headed into the station, flipping up the top of his new hoodie to hide his scar. Harry was making his way over to platform ten, the book he bought said the train platform was hidden in the barrier between platforms nine and ten, when suddenly he heard a loud woman's voice behind him, "Which platform is it again dears?" Turning around Harry saw a family of six standing near him, two parents, one matronly looking woman in a paisley dress, and a tall gangly man in formal white tie clothing, four boys and a little girl. They all had red hair, and looked out of breath as if they had run to make the train, and dressed like they had just come from a rehearsal of Oliver.

"Nine and three quarters mum, the same as it always is, but why couldn't we..." the youngest boy answered before his mother shushed him. As soon as Harry heard this he continued walking, passing the platforms, and stood off at a distance to see what would happen next.

"Of course it is, alright you boys off you go, Fred you and George first, then you Ron." One by one the red haired family went through the stone barrier between the two platforms disappearing before Harry's eyes. As soon as they were through Harry turned his cart around and calmly walked through the barrier hoping no one noticed his arrival. Harry moved quickly, loading his trunk onto the train and quickly found an empty compartment where he sat down and reached for his self defense textbook.

Quite quickly the train started to fill up as students arrived and tried to find a compartment with their friends. It should have been no surprise then when, after about twenty minutes, the door opened and people started to join Harry. "Hello, is this seat taken?" Asked a girl around Harry's age, with even features and shoulder length brown hair. "Nope so far I'm the only one in here," Harry replied before holding up his hand, "Harry, and you are?" Harry asked trying to be friendly.

"Leanne Church, is this your first trip to Hogwarts too?" She said shaking the hand.

"Yup, I must say I am curious to see what it's like."

Just then another student entered. He was blonde haired boy with a short squat nose. "Excuse me are any of these seats free?"

"Take anyone you want so long as I'm not sitting in it" said Leanne.

"Finally a seat! You wouldn't think this train would fill up so fast, or that there would be so many little groups, this is the fourth compartment I've tried, so far every spare seat has been reserved for somebody else. Some of these kids are not exactly the friendliest people I've ever met. By the way, I'm Stephen Cornfoot, are you both going to be first years as well? The boy said in one long breath.

"Yup, I'm Leanne and this is Harry" Leanne replied. With that the train started off, and the jolt knocked Stephen into his seat. As the train pulled away from the station the three got to know each other, talking about which house they expected to be in, and what they thought their lives were going to be like now.

"So are either of you from a magical family or was all this a surprise for you as well?" Stephen asked as he got comfortable.

"Nope, I wished I had my camera on me though when Professor McGonagall knocked on the door" Leanne replied.

"My family is as muggle as you can get" Harry replied making sure not to give too much away just yet. Harry had expected to spend most of the trip in silence studying, but somehow these two were just so easy to talk to.

After an hour or so of talking the three were interrupted by an old lady pushing a cart filled with odd different types of sweets. "Anything from the cart dears?" the old lady asked.

Stephen Cornfoot immediately started looking everything over, before collapsing back into his seat. "There is nothing there I recognise."

"Well in that case we had better start learning about them." Said Harry choosing a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, before noticing a large jar with jumping frogs in them. "Are those real frogs?" Harry asked dubiously.

"No just chocolate, with a charm to make them hop around." Replied the kindly looking old lady, used to first years not knowing anything about good snacks.

"They also contain a card inside them about a famous witch or wizard, some people collect them."

"In that case I'll take three of them please." The items were quickly paid for and the three dug into the bounty.

Leanne was the first person, to get over the idea of biting into a jumping frog, and broke off a leg before popping it in her mouth. "Wow, these are delicious" she said as she broke the frog in half, stopping its hoping around and extracting a card. "So this is the card she was talking about."

"Is it just me or is the picture on that card moving?" Stephen asked looking over her shoulder.

"Magical pictures do that, and some of the paintings can actually talk." Replied Harry.

"How do you know that?" Leann asked surprised.

"When I went to get my school things I bought a book on what to expect in the magical world."

"Wow I wish I had thought of that. I did pick up this cool wand holster though." Stephen said showing a black sheath that was attached to his belt. "My dad asked if they had any way to store the wand and that Olivander fellow suggested this."

"He didn't mention anything like that to me" Leanne said with a voice that seemed to hold a touch of anger as she examined the holster. A touch of Jealousy possibly seeping into her voice.

"Me either. I'll have to remember that for next year when I go shopping. It looks like a damn handy thing to have. The three turned back to their snacking, putting the three cards aside, and stopping their experimenting when Harry bit into something he couldn't describe in mixed company from the every flavoured bean box.

Before they knew it the older red haired boy popped his head into their compartment to tell them the train was approaching Hogsmeade and it was time to change into school robes. The boys dutifully got their robes out and walked down to the lavatory to put theirs on giving Leanne her privacy. As soon as the train stopped Harry grabbed his trunk and placed his wizard hat firmly on his head before heading for the door when an older student told him to leave his luggage on the train. Stepping onto the platform a loud voice could be heard over all the rest of the noise shouting "Firs'Years! Firs' Years! Firs' Years Over Here.!" Walking towards the voice Harry was suddenly greeted by the largest man he had ever seen. He stood at least twelve feet tall and had a large black beard. "Firs' Years, you all 'ere then?...Follow me." The man then led them down a path through a wood to the edge of a lake and loaded them into boats which magically floated across the water towards a large castle that appeared over the tops of the trees. The students all hoped out of their boats and started milling around while they waited for more instructions. It was at this point that a large chirp was heard and a familiar owl dived at the group pulling up at the last second to land on Harry's shoulder. "Hello Hedwig, glad to see you made safe and sound" Harry said as he gently stroked her feathers and handed her a treat from his pocket. Immediately a group of girls gathered around him to coo and pet his owl, which in turn caused Hedwig to fly off again, up to the castle and into one of the towers. Finally Professor McGonagall arrived through a large pair of double doors that swung open.

"You will all follow me" said a very stern looking McGonagall as she led the first years through the building and into an anteroom "The Start of Term feast is about to begin, but first every child here must be sorted into one of the four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin. So prepare yourself, in a few minutes I will lead you into the great hall and you will each take the test."

As soon as she left the room the place burst into noise as each child wondered what the test could be. There was a bushy haired girl who had pulled out her textbooks and was frantically flipping from page to page as if looking for something to help her, while the young red headed boy he saw at King's Cross was telling his entourage about his brothers saying they had to fight a troll. Harry carefully hung back and looked around the group, some of whom seemed very worried about what might happen next. 'Well I seem to have prepared more than some of the kids in my year, and if my compartment was anything to go on we have a lot of muggle family kids here, so I should be fine.' With his worries eased, and happy in the knowledge that there was nothing he could do now to change the outcome Harry leaned back against the wall and relaxed waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen.

That is until ghosts suddenly appeared through the door he was leaning next to, a fairly startling thing to see. He had read about the Hogwarts ghosts in Hogwarts a History, and had actually been looking forward to meeting them, and was curious about their lives in the castle, but the knowledge that they existed was entirely different than seeing them for the first time. 'Well no time like the present to get to know them' thought Harry, so with that he turned to the one closest to him, "Hello you must be the ghosts of Hogwarts."

"Yes, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service." Said a ghost with a ruff around his neck as he bowed gracefully.

"Henry James Potter at yours sir." Harry replied with an equal bow, although due to lack of practice his was slightly less graceful. It may have been the fact that most people had never seen ghosts before, but a silence had settled over the room as the rest of the first-years stared on at Harry and the ghosts with their mouths open. 'Damn' thought Harry looking around the room, 'why did I have to go and open my mouth… Some of these kids are from magical families, surely they are used to this.'

"I must say my boy, it is wonderful to see such politeness in a new batch of students. Most children just seem to want to poke us with a stick." Said a ghost that suddenly appeared whose shirt front seemed to be covered in silvery blood.

"Well for many of us you are our first exposure to the supernatural, besides what ever bits of magic we accidently did to get accepted here." Before any more could be said though McGonagall walked into the room and the students were ushered into the Great Hall, a large room with four tables running down the length of the room, and one table running width ways against the back wall. Looking up Harry saw candles floating above them lighting the whole place, and there was the ceiling he had read about showing what the sky looked like outside. At the front of the line he saw the girl who had been checking her notes telling another boy about the ceiling.

"Now then" said McGonagall in a clear voice. "When I call your name you are to walk up and sit on that stool in front of the teacher's table, and place the hat their on your head." McGonagall said pointing to a rather worn looking pointy hat that had been placed on top of a stool in the middle of the hall.

As soon as McGonagall finished giving her instructions though the most amazing thing happened. The brim of the hat seemed to separate into a mouth and the hat burst into song.

"_Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, _

_But don't judge on what you see, _

_I'll eat myself if you can find _

_A smarter hat than me. _

_You can keep your bowlers black, _

_Your top hats sleek and tall, _

_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat _

_And I can cap them all. _

_There's nothing hidden in your head _

_The Sorting Hat can't see, _

_So try me on and I will tell you _

_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor, _

_Where dwell the brave at heart, _

_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry _

_Set Gryffindors apart; _

_You might belong in Hufflepuff, _

_Where they are just and loyal, _

_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true _

_And unafraid of toil; _

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, _

_if you've a ready mind, _

_Where those of wit and learning, _

_Will always find their kind; _

_Or perhaps in Slytherin _

_You'll make your real friends, _

_Those cunning folk use any means _

_To achieve their ends. _

_So put me on! Don't be afraid! _

_And don't get in a flap! _

_You're in safe hands (though I have none) _

_For I'm a Thinking Cap!"_

The end of the song was greeted by cheers and applause from the older students already seated, while the first years just stood there gobsmacked, a look Harry was beginning to feel was happening far too often at the moment. Then McGonagall strode forward and one by one started calling out names.

"Abbott, Hannah" At which point a little witch walked up to the stool and sat down placing the hat on her head.

A few seconds later the hat called out "Hufflepuff!"

This continued going through all the first years in alphabetical order. Leanne ended up in Hufflepuff, Stephen in Ravenclaw, and the bushy haired girl ended up in Gryffindor. Finally Professor McGonagall called out "Potter, Harry".

At this point the whole hall suddenly started whispering to one another. "Harry Potter, did she say Harry Potter, as in The Harry Potter?" and statements to that effect.

Harry made his way up to the stool and placed the hat on his head. Harry immediately felt a presence entering his head causing him to bring his Occlumency training to bear. "Well what do we have here, The Harry Potter! I am impressed. No need to keep the shields up with me boy, I can't tell anyone what I've seen, only general impressions on their character. I must commend you though the shields aren't too bad for a beginner. Now where to sort you… Let's see here, you have shown the right attributes to get you into any of the houses, how about Slytherin, you could be great, and Slytherin would help make you great!" The Hat's voice seemed to resonate in Harry's head.

'I don't want to be great, I want to be left alone' was Harry's response.

"But your mind is cunning, the way you have done your best not to draw attention to yourself as you make yourself stronger mentally and physically, and you could achieve much and stand out in the crowd with Slytherin's help."

'I Want To Be Left Alone!' Harry replied slowly and forcefully. 'If I wanted to stand out I would have shown up in a bright pink tutu, instead of doing my best to make sure I wasn't noticed. I don't want to stand out in the crowd, I would be happy if most people didn't even notice me.'

At this the hat let out a slight snort "Hmph, well that also rules out Gryffindor. You have a pretty good mind and would make a decent Ravenclaw, and your loyalty to your friends show you would also make a good Hufflepuff."

'Hufflepuffs seem to be the ones nobody notices, from what I've read, I think I could be myself in that house.'

"Then Hufflepuff it is. You could do well there." With that Harry felt the presence leave his mind, and he heard a large shout of "Hufflepuff" from right over his head. Harry then proceeded to take the hat off and walk over to the table he had seen all the other Hufflepuffs sitting at, ignoring all the stares and comments being made by students and some of the teachers as he found an empty seat at the end of the table.

As soon as everyone had been sorted, with the troll boy (whom Harry now heard was called Weasley) going to Gryffindor, the Headmaster stood up from his chair at the teachers table. Spreading his arms wide open the grey bearded man welcomed everyone to the start of a new school year before descending into gibberish. Harry was surprised by this, and turned back to the table to find it now full of food. 'Wow that must have been some sort of summoning spell' thought Harry 'but I didn't see him use a wand, so some people must know about doing magic without a wand like Naruto's people do… I can't wait to get to the library.' With that Harry turned his thoughts back to the table and loaded up his plate with food, which for once, he did not have to cook himself. After finishing his first course Harry turned to his neighbours and started to listen to the conversation going on around him, when one of the older boys clapped him on the back, "So you really are The Harry Potter? What a great turn out for Hufflepuff!" The boy said with a large smile, "sorry I'm Rupert, Rupert Oldridge. I am a new prefect, so I am responsible for you first years. Anything you want to know, just ask." From there the two struck up a conversation. As the conversation turned to the Professors they were joined by another boy who was starting his third year, Cedric Diggory. Harry was looking over the faculty when he felt a mild attack on his head that was also quite painful.

"Rupert who is that professor there, the one with the turban on his head?" Harry asked as he pointed to the professor he had been looking at a second ago when the pain struck.

"Oh that is Professor Quirrell. He used to be the Muggle Studies professor, but he just got the Defense Against Dark Arts job. I've never had class with him, so I can't really tell you anything else about him."

About an hour and a half into the meal Albus Dumbledore, stood up again. "Now that we've all had a chance to eat, I do have some notices. Firstly, the corridor on the right hand side of the third floor is out of bounds on penalty of death!"

'Great' thought Harry, 'the third floor, I don't even know which floor I'm on now.'

"Secondly Quidditch trials will begin starting next week, contact your House Captain if you wish to try out.

Everyone should also remember that the forbidden forest is out of bounds to all students, Hence Its Name.

And lastly Mr. Filch would like me to remind you all that magic should not be used in the corridors, and that the list of banned products has grown, the full list is attached to Mr. Filch's office door.

Now then I think the time has come for the school song, so if everyone could pick their favourite tune we can begin." Suddenly the words to the song appeared in red flame at the front of the Great Hall and everyone started singing along, in different tunes. The whole thing took about ten minutes to accomplish thanks to the twin red haired kids (whom thanks to the sorting Harry now knew were Weasleys) deciding to sing the slowest dirge they could think of. Which was actually quite an accomplishment. It was at this point that Harry started to wonder if he had not actually been shipped off to an insane asylum, and was on some weird drug cocktail making him see all these things. "Now then, I am sure we have all had a long day. So Prefects, lead your houses back to your dorms." With that the meal was called to an ending.

Rupert Oldridge jumped on top of the Hufflepuff table shouting, "First Years, Hufflepuff First Years gather round" after a few seconds waiting for all the first years to gather round. "All right first year Hufflepuffs, follow me and I will lead you to our rooms." The group followed Rupert through a maze of turns as they walked down several flights of stairs until they came to stop in front of a painting of a woman searching a pantry with fruits and cheeses stacked high. The woman turned to Rupert and asked, "what would you like?"

"The milk of human kindness" Rupert replied. Hearing these words the painting swung open, even though there was no hinge visible, exposing a wide stairway leading down. At the bottom of the stairs Harry found a large common room with a roaring fire against the back wall and sofas and armchairs, already filled with older witches and wizards, dotted all around the room. "All right" Rupert called out over the noise, once again standing on a table "for those of you who I haven't introduced myself to yet I'm Rupert Oldridge. The picture we just walked through is the entrance to the Hufflepuff quarters. Since our house is represented by the Badger we refer to our quarters as the Sett. The password you all heard me use needs to be repeated every time you want to enter the Sett. The password will change roughly every two weeks. It is Vital that you never tell someone from another house what our password is. Now the sleeping quarters are up these staircases here, girls, yours are up the left hand staircase, boys up the right hand one. As first years your dorms are on the first floor. The staircase behind us leads down to the Hufflepuff study area. Now tomorrow all first years will meet here at seven sharp. A prefect," at this point Rupert held up the gold badge that was attached to the front of his robe, "will then show you the quick way to the Great Hall for breakfast, where you will receive your timetables. We will be doing this every day for the rest of the week so that you learn your way around. Now I'm sure you want to get comfortable and explore the Sett a little, if you have any more questions, just ask any of the older students. This is Hufflepuff, were known for our loyalty and hard work, we all try and do our part, and we do what we can to help each other out, remember that."

As soon as they were dismissed Harry trotted upstairs to find where he would be sleeping. On the first floor he found two doors. Opening the first one Harry found a decent sized bathroom with several sinks, two rows of stalls, and a large shower area at the end set up for five people, 'sweet, no waiting for a shower in the morning.' The second room held five large four poster beds, each set up with curtains around them to give every boy some privacy should he want it, and next to each bed was a chest of drawers. Harry found his trunk at the foot of one of the beds and set to work transferring his clothes from the trunk to the chest of drawers, as several of the other boys were doing. Next Harry took out his school books and carefully arranged them on top, making them easy to get to for the morning. The rest of the evening was spent in the common room getting to know people before going to bed, where the lights turned off automatically at 9:30.

In the headmaster's office the professors had all gathered round a table and were discussing their new crop of first years. "So what do we think of the new bunch?" Dumbledore asked the group.

"Another of the Weasley brood I see, I hope this one takes more after Percy than he does the twins." Snape said starting off the conversation.

"And I see we are finally graced with a Malfoy, I'm sure he is going to be a delight to teach" McGonagall snapped back, not liking Snape's remark about two of her lions.

"At least he knew his house" Snape shot back.

"Just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, you've been practically dancing over the thought of Potter coming to school and being a Gryffindor like his precious father before him… Although, while he may not have made the cut into Gryffindor, one look should tell you he's going to be just like that smug ass."

"Severus please, try to contain yourself," Dumbledore said "although you do make a good point Harry ending up in Hufflepuff was a surprise, don't start judging people on looks alone, I'm sure the boy has hidden depths."

Pomona Sprout, hearing her house seemingly being put down by her peers, took offense to this, "and what may I ask is wrong with Hufflepuff? I understand that we aren't as lazy as some Gryffindors, or as deceitful as some Slytherins, but I can't see how that is a bad thing."

"Nothing my dear, nothing at all" Dumbledore said a little too quickly, "we are all just surprised that the boy that defeated Voldemort would not be put in a house known for its bravery... Hat," said Dumbledore turning to the Sorting Hat, "is there anything you can tell us about the boy?"

"Not really, he is a very private person, so I can't disclose much."

"But at least tell us why Hufflepuff."

"He is a very hard worker, so where else should he have gone?"

"But doesn't the boy have any other qualities?" Dumbledore pushed.

"Yes, but his ranking qualities fit most in line with Helga than any other, and that is all I will say on the matter."

"Well then ladies and gentlemen, it seems we will have to take a wait and see approach to the boy, and it's probably a good idea to do the same with Malfoy at the same time."

The faculty, seeing they would get no more out of the hat moved on to other topics.

* * *

The group had spent most of the last month working on their team dynamic, learning how each other moved so they could anticipate each other and work to support each others strengths and buttress each others weaknesses. 'I can't wait to see what we are up to today.' Naruto thought as he hoped from rooftop to rooftop. 'Hamaki-sensei did promise us something new.'

Naruto was the last of the genin to arrive. Shortly after landing though there was a loud bang. The three turned to see a column of fog in front of them, which when cleared revealed Mitarashi Anko, eating a stick of dango, and Hamaki-sensei. "Hello you three, remember me?" Anko said with a sneer as she bit into her last piece of dango.

"You three will try to take down Mitarashi Anko. If at any time you believe you can't do it, then you must work together to escape her safely, and return to this ring." Hamaki said as he pulled a kunai out of his pouch, and with it started to draw a circle in the ground about four feet in diameter.

"Not a problem Sensei, we will have her beaten in a matter of minutes" declared Naruto upon hearing the news.

"You will begin…Now!" Hamaki exclaimed. With that the three genin started their attack. Naruto, never one to not be in the center of things ran right at Anko and launched himself into a Taijutsu battle, while Makoto quickly started to circle around so she could attack from behind. Lastly Misu climbed a nearby tree and looked for opportunities to ensnare Anko in a Genjutsu, and in the meantime tried to distract her by flinging kunai and shuriken down on Anko, and calling out helpful tips as she examined the way Anko moved.

After twenty minutes the three genin had yet to land a single hit. Anko had been fighting purely defensively, just blocking or dodging every attack that came her way. The three worked fairly well together, Anko was mainly dodging the attacks trying to bring Makoto around so that she would be fighting on at least two closer fronts, but the two genin made sure to keep their spacing most of the time, and even when they were close to each other both knew enough to attack in ways that did not block the others attempts to land a blow.

Suddenly Anko went on the attack. After three minutes of trying to hold their own Naruto, who at this time had a small cut under his eye, called for Makoto to retreat. Makoto pulled back and ran out of sight, setting up a series of traps while Naruto and Misu kept Anko busy. Two minutes later an explosive tag sailed out from the side towards Anko. This was a signal, Misu and Naruto started running towards the traps, with Anko hot on their heals. Just before the traps Misu threw several smoke bombs in front of her, covering their jump over the obstacles as they ran for the circle. On the other side of the traps Makoto was waiting with a handful of kunai in is hands. As soon as his teammates were out of the way Makoto threw all his Kunai directly into the path he expected Anko to be on before once again turning and running as fast as he could for the circle.

The three genin eventually made it back to the circle with only minor cuts, and bruises that would heal with time. Naruto had been the one to suffer the worst, as he was the one facing Anko most of the time, and the weights had made him slightly slower than the other two when they were running. "Well you three brats didn't do too bad," Anko said after the test was over. "I think the three of you together could take on a chunin now and live."

"Time to move into stage two of your training then." Amaki decreed, "now that you three know how to work together we will work on perfecting your skills and learning new ones. From now on I will meet with the three of you individually one day a week. Then once a week we will work on team exercises, two days for missions, and one day to recuperate. This will give you two days a week to work on what you learned in the personal day." Hamaki declared after they had had a minute to get their breath back. "Alright, go get those cuts and bruises seen to and then I expect to see you over at the obstacle course after lunch."

* * *

The first few days were hard for Harry. Firstly he did not know his way around the castle yet, a problem which was compounded by the fact that the castle was filled with constantly shifting staircases, and hallways that would on occasion decide to cut themselves in half, so to reach a classroom you suddenly found yourself having to run around the school to get to the hallway from the other side. At times it felt as if the castle itself did not want you to learn your way around. If it had not been for the Hufflepuff prefects who would meet them at the end of every class and take them to the next one Harry was sure he would have never made a single class on time. The one good thing you could say about the experience is that it made sure you were always aware of your surroundings. Secondly due to the fact that he was still learning his way around he was not able to exercise properly, an annoying burden when you are used to spending two hours a day working out. Lastly everyone here seemed to be treating him oddly. Professor McGonagall had warned him about this when he first met her but Harry had not realised the extent of his apparent fame. Every one seemed to at least know of him. On the first day while at lunch a snotty pale blonde haired boy had walked up to him "Harry Potter?"

"Yes, and you are?" Harry asked turning around to look at a boy that was flanked on both sides by two larger boys who, due to their size and the way they slouched, seemed to reminded harry of something he had seen in his classes on the evolution of man.

"Draco Malfoy. You may have heard of my family."

"Nope, can't say that I have, why do they have a shop in Diagon Alley or something?"

Apparently Harry had said the wrong thing, as the boy suddenly turned an interesting shade of red before cursing at Harry and walking away. "You shouldn't have said that Harry" said Cedric, "His family is actually quite well known, one of the most powerful in politics today. They're also known for bearing a grudge."

"What? Why? All I did was ask why I should know him."

"You also suggested that his parents were tradesmen, to some people that is an insult, especially to those who think themselves superior to everyone, and therefore don't have to work."

"That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever hears. Oh well, just have to see what happens, anyway there was nothing to get offended over, it was an honest question. But if that is his reaction I don't think I want to be friends with him anyway."

Even the teachers were treating him differently, several of them so far had seemed to stumble or make some comment when they came to his name while calling attendance at the beginning of a class. The exception being Professor McGonagall and the History of Magic professor, a ghost named Binns, who did not bother to take attendance at all. Harry was used to being ignored by his teachers, but Binns ignored all his students. He would arrive at his classroom, and wait until five minutes after the bell rang, at which point he would start to lecture, not stopping until the class was over. Up until this point Harry had been a fan of history and it was thanks to his studying ahead over the summer that Harry discovered Binns was merely reading directly from the textbook. Had he not discovered this he would probably have given up on the subject all together. 'If this continues' Harry thought, 'I should be able to pass this class no problem, and have just picked up an extra period to do other studying in'.

The first opportunity Harry got to practice magic was in McGonagall's Transfiguration class. The class was given the job of turning a matchstick into a pin. Here Harry's summer training seemed to pay off as the task was accomplished after only a few tries, a fact that Harry kept to himself after noticing how much trouble the rest of the group was having with the subject, quickly turning the pin back into a matchstick.

Harry was now walking into his first potions class, talking to Stephen as they took their seats. "So I hear we need to watch out for our Potions Professor, he apparently loves to deduct points for the slightest mistake." Stephen told Harry.

"Why"

"He is the housemaster of Slytherin house, and he wants to make sure they win the house cup."

"Wow, that's pretty low, even for teachers. At least Binns just ignores everyone."

Before they could say anything else the professor stormed into the room, his robes billowing behind him like angry clouds.

"Silence…and put your wand away, this is not some silly charms class boy" he called out staring down an unlucky Justin Finch-Fletchley.

"To succeed in this class you must learn to pay careful attention to detail, and meticulous preparation. Now let us take the roll." With that Professor Snape started to work his way through the attendance sheet, coming to a stop at Harry's name. "Ahh Harry Potter, our resident celebrity… Tell me Mr. Potter, are you hoping that your fame is going to carry you through this class?"

"No professor, I am hoping that it will be attention to detail, and careful preparation." Harry replied, wondering why a teacher would make such a comment.

"Five points from Hufflepuff for your cheek Mr. Potter, now let us check on that careful preparation you claim, where would I look for a bezoar?"

"According to Arsenius Jigger, in his book Magical Drafts and Potions, a bezoar may be found inside the stomach lining of a goat sir." Harry responded quickly.

"Well someone has been reading ahead haven't they… trying to show up the rest of the class Mr. Potter?" After this Snape set the class to brewing a boil curing potion, and dividing the group into teams of two. The rest of the class went by fairly smoothly but with Snape constantly hovering over Harry attempting to make him nervous. This was where his Occlumency training kicked in, and allowed Harry to complete the task without any major mistakes, although he did have to stop Leanne at one point who Snape did have a little on edge.

It wasn't until Saturday that Harry was able to start getting back to his regular workout routine. Friday had been a beautiful day and with the afternoon off, Harry had managed to find a way outside from the Sett. Now his training could restart, so the next morning off he went, and had anyone been looking for him at 5:30 in the morning they would have found him doing pull ups on a tree branch at the edge of the forbidden forest. It was his first weekend at Hogwarts and Harry was planning to spend some of it in the library researching cool spells, and the rest working on his Occlumency translation for Naruto hoping to get the first text in the mail soon so it would arrive before his birthday. As he finished up the last of his exercises and was headed back to the Sett Harry stopped short as an idea came to him. 'Naruto asked that I not teach anyone what I know because the ninja are afraid that one day their secrets might be used against them. Should I require the same of Naruto? It would make it fair, and if his Hokage knows he can't divulge his knowledge it would be a legitimate way to give him an edge. It could become like one of those Kekkei Genkai things he talks about, Occlumency could end up being an Uzumaki special ability. I'll pitch it to him, and if he says no, I'll give him the info anyway. At least that way he has the opportunity to get a leg up.' With that thought concluded Harry continued to run back to the castle to get ready to face the day.


	6. Chapter 6 New Skills

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis.

Ch. 6. New Skills

Harry was sitting on his bed with his curtains pulled up around him trying to access his chakra the way that ninja did. He knew he was making progress when, a few days ago, while practicing spells in an empty classroom he felt his magic traveling out of his palm and into his wand. It seemed like the steps the ninja went through to get to know their Chakra was something that magicians didn't need to do thanks to the wand, except possibly those like Dumbledore who seemed to do some magic wandlessly. However, Harry was having trouble concentrating this morning, for today was the day he learned to fly. Ever since arriving Harry had thrown himself into his studies learning every bit he could in his spare time, even with his extra muggle studies he had managed to stay on top of his class schedule, but for someone like Harry who had grown up in a home where the number one dream was escape, the idea of the freedom of flight was a big deal!Before he got his letter to Hogwarts his dreams had been based around two things, flying, and escape. At the library his two favourite books were the Biggles series, and the book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.

A few hours later the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first years were entering the Quidditch stadium just as the Slytherins and Gryffindors were leaving. 'Wow something definitely happened in that class!' Harry thought watching the other first years trudging out. 'Although what do you expect when you put Gryffindors and Slytherins together?'

"Alright class if there is any tomfoolery like there was in the last class you will All live to regret it, is that clear?" shouted a very cross looking Madame Hooch.

'What did they do last class I wonder' Harry wondered.

"Alright everyone go and grab a broom." With that everyone ran to the brooms that were stacked against the shack by the entrance of the stadium and started the lesson, learning how to mount the broom, how to takeoff with the broom, hovering, then lastly moving, all of which seemed to come very naturally to Harry for some reason. As soon as they were allowed to fly around Harry took off exploring, climbing and diving, and generally exploring the sights. 'Cool' thought Harry after just completing a barrel roll, "next summer I am definitely buying myself a broom.' With that Harry pulled up on the broomstick and pulled himself into a giant loop. He completed the class by doing a quick turn he had seen once on the telly when the Dursleys were watching a program about an air show. Harry pulled up as if he was doing another loop, but stopped when he was half way through, flying upside down and back in the direction he just came from, before flipping right side up and continuing on his journey. 'I need to get a book or something on airplane stunts and fighter tactics.' I wonder if there are any books on broomstick flying maneuvers in the library.' Near the end of the class Harry had burnt off a lot of his excess energy, flying was actually more hard work than he thought it would be, especially with the moves he was trying to do, and was just taking in the sights flying lazily around the grounds when he spotted light reflecting off of something hidden in a tree. Flying closer he saw the light was reflecting off a glass ball that someone had stuck inside the tree. 'I've seen that ball before' though Harry, 'That is that Longbottom's Rememberall. The one he got in the mail this morning…I wonder how it ended up here. Well I should probably return it to him.' With that Harry picked up the orb and placed it in his pocket before continuing with the class.

That night in the Great Hall Harry stopped at the Gryffindor table on the way to dinner. "Hey Neville, I think you dropped this" Harry said as he pulled the Rememberall out of his pocket.

"Wow thank's Harry I didn't know how I was going to get that back." Neville replied grabbing the Rememberall, causing it to start filling with red smoke.

"Yeah that Malfoy is a real dick!" butted in Ron Weasley as gravy dripped onto his robes from the fork that was hovering near his mouth, overloaded with the steak pie they were serving tonight.

"What did you lot get up to in that class anyway? Hooch was furious when we showed up." asked Ernie who had been talking with Harry as they walked in.

"Well" said Neville looking a little ashamed, "I got a little Nervous at the beginning of class and I pushed off early and a little hard, ended up losing control of my broom breaking my wrist when I fell down."

"That's when the Rememberall dropped out of his pocket. As soon as Madam Hooch went to take Neville to the infirmary Malfoy scooped it up and jumped on his broom to go and hide it, and we never saw it again." Finished Ron.

Ernie was shocked at this, "Why didn't someone go up and get it?"

"Hooch told us if anyone was on his broom when she got back then she would expel him."

"So Malfoy is expelled then?"

"No, no professor saw him so he got away with it. Blonde git."

"So why was Hooch so upset?"

"Oh Hermione threatened to tell on him and the next thing you know he was throwing a curse at her, just as Hooch walked in. He's got detention next week for that though, the little shit."

As Ernie and Harry sat down back at their table they could not believe what they heard.

"Can you believe those Gryffindors, one of their own gets in trouble and no one except Hermione tries to do anything to help him." Ernie said as he poured himself a cup of tea.

"Yes it would appear bravery and loyalty are not the same thing, at least not for most Gryffindors." Harry said serving himself a slice of the pie.

Suddenly Rupert came in and sat down across from Harry saying, "Harry I thought you said you were brought up by muggles. Where did you learn to fly like that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I just happened to look out the window in History of Magic while you were having your flying lesson, and I saw some of the things you were doing. They were amazing. You had better try out for the Quidditch team next year."

"But I've never even seen a game of Quidditch, let alone know how to play it."

"Duh! That's why I said next year." With that Rupert started to try and describe to Harry the wizarding world's most popular sport.

That night sitting in his bed Harry thought about what Rupert had said, 'do I really want to add something else to my plate? Between the stuff Naruto has sent me, and my own studying and trying to make a new friend, do I want to add a sport? I get enough exercise already, I don't need a sport... But it could be a good way to make more friends. I wouldn't be by myself all the time... It probably means a lot more practicing on my broom, and at least learning something about the game… Well I've got a year to make up my find for definite at least.' With that struggle at least considered, Harry went back to his chakra exercises, before turning to his nightly Occlumency regime.

* * *

Naruto was standing in the middle of the training ground, sweat pouring off his face as he tried to master his chakra. At their first private session Hamaki-sensei had been very frank with Naruto, "Naruto, you are pretty good at Taijutsu, and we are going to work more on that, but you also have the huge chakra reserves to be a powerful Ninjutsu user, if we can get your chakra under control. Therefore we are going to work on two things as well as Taijutsu in our sessions. One is chakra control, I can't teach you any new jutsus until your chakra is more stable, and two is jutsu control. You are going to work on perfecting your jutsus so you need to use less seals to call up a jutsu, maybe eventually getting to the point where you don't need to use any for some of them." Which was why a little over a week later Naruto was now preparing himself to run up the side of a tree.

'All right this time I am going all the way to the top!' with that Naruto took off at a sprint, vaulting onto the tree and making it up seven steps before he fell, and landed rather painfully on his rump.

Hamaki sat on a bench shaking his head. Naruto had been at this now for an hour. Hamaki had discovered when he first started training Naruto that the boy tended to be, to put it nicely, a bit impetuous, proven by the fact that as soon as he showed Naruto the exercise he had jumped to it, without even waiting for further instruction. Hamaki had therefore sat back and watched the show, waiting for a little of Naruto's seemingly boundless energy to burn off, "Naruto may I ask a question?"

"What sensei?"

"you are trying to master a control exercise, so why are you doing it in such a frantic and hectic way?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're running at that tree so fast you don't have time to think, let alone maintain the necessary level of chakra. Eventually you should be able to do it without thinking but not without many hours of practice."

"So you're saying I should be trying to slowly walk up this tree?" at this point Naruto's face became flushed with embarrassment, "or maybe even just try and stick to the side of the trunk with both fee first?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea Naruto, that might work great." Shaking his head Hamaki went back to observing the exercise. He knew Naruto had a good mind, he had proved it often enough, but his number one problem seemed to be remembering to use it. Naruto then spent the next hour just trying to plant himself on the tree like a low hanging branch and hold it, before moving onto the next stage.

Naruto had finally been able to walk up and down the tree by the end of the lesson, and stayed to practice it for another hour after Hamaki-sensei had gone home, a lot more work still needed to be done with it before he would be even close to mastering it. After the class Naruto went home to shower. 'Better test my traps soon, my birthday is right around the corner.' Naruto's birthday had always been a bittersweet day for him. Ever since he had met Zuki-san she would open the library for him in the morning and lock the door behind him, giving him free reign of the entire building, including the little courtyard in the middle of the building, except for the Jonin and Chunin sections of course. That meant less chance of him being caught by the villagers and attacked, but it also meant that he had to have his apartment's defenses set up before he went, or risk coming home to a destroyed place. Now that Naruto had made Genin he was starting to make some money, and he had some things he didn't want destroyed. Walking into his apartment he found a letter and a package from Harry. Ripping open the letter he quickly began to read, stopping all of a sudden after a few seconds. 'Swear not to train others in the ways of Harry's magic? Well I guess that is fair but I will need to let the Hokage know that is what I am doing.' Reading on Naruto once again stopped and quickly opened the package to reveal the product of many hours of Harry's time, a scroll that was bound by a piece of string, the Occlumency books translated into Japanese. 'Shit, this will be awesome if it works. Imagine being known for something other than the demon…I like Harry's idea of making it a Uzumaki family secret, although I will have to correct his understanding of the Kekkei Genkais, might make people stand up and recognise me…I really need to talk to the Old man, and soon!'

The next day was Makoto's turn to train with Hamaki-sensei. After his morning warm up Naruto ran over to the Hokage building. "I need to speak to the Old man today."

The Hokage's secretary glanced up at Naruto and sniffed in distain before turning to his schedule. "The Hokage will see you in an hour."

Naruto knew the secretary didn't like him, never had as a matter of fact, so in an extra cheerful voice, guaranteed to annoy the man even more Naruto called out, "Thanks! See him then," and skipped towards the exit to work on his tree walking a little more before the meeting.

An hour later Naruto walked into the Hokage's office where he was greeted by the Old Man as he leaned back into his chair saying, "Naruto, making appointments now are we, not trying to surprise me and give me a heart attack any more?"

"What can I say Ojii-san, I must be maturing. Of course, if I am then I am doing it faster and better than anyone before me." Naruto replied with a grin before coming to a stop in front of the old man's desk. "I've been asked by Harry if I too will promise not to share what he teaches me with others, in the same way that we ask the same of him. I didn't think it was right to say yes or no without first checking with you, although he did say I would be able to teach it to my kids, like special Uzumaki family jutsus."

The Hokage was shocked to hear this, 'what? Only teach them to Naruto? An Uzumaki family ability…It would make him more valuable to the village, and may help him gain some respect and recognition. That with Minato's legacy will make him a force to be reckoned with in a few years… I will finally be able to repay Minato for the way the child has been treated, and it won't hurt the village, Naruto hasn't betrayed us yet, and he isn't about to start now.' A few seconds later the old man looked up at Naruto saying, "That certainly seems fair since we are asking the same of him. The problem is the council Naruto. You will need to promise that whatever you learn you do not show to others until you become a Chunin. After that you could show off your ability, without the council really being able to do anything to you."

Upon hearing this news Naruto jumped for joy, 'Yosh! I get an Uzumaki family jutsu, let see what people think when they face off against me next time!' "Thank you Ojii-san, you won't regret this!"

"Remember Naruto, Secrecy."

"Hai Ojii-san, I will put a blood seal on any scrolls he sends me, and maybe he will learn a way to put something similar on his mail eventually, something that only I will know how to take off" Naruto then headed for the door ready to go home, apply the seal, and start learning this special way to potentially block Genjutsu when another thought hit him causing him to turn back to the old man, "Ojii-san, what do I do if I need someone to practice with?"

"If that happens Naruto come and see me and we will see what needs to happen."

"Thank's Ojii-san," now Naruto left, and quickly headed home to get to work."

Naruto quickly ran home and got to work on his new scroll. Once the blood seal was in place Naruto felt much safer and spent the rest of the day divided between studying the scroll and working out.

A week later Naruto's birthday had finally arrived. Naruto woke up early and gathered together his scrolls and several cups of instant ramen before heading to the library, arriving at six thirty in the morning. Now getting to the library that early might seem strange to some people, but today was the day people celebrated the defeat of the Kyubi. People had been drinking and gearing up for today since the night before. Naruto had known people to get rowdy and violent by nine, and did not want to run the risk of having to defend himself against a drunk, and then end up really hurting a Konoha citizen. Thirty minutes later Zuki-san arrived and unlocked the door for him, double checked that the Chunin and Jonin sections were sealed closed, and went to start her day. Naruto spent the whole day locked in his second favorite place in Konoha, with almost any scroll he could desire at hand. Naruto first put away some scrolls that had been left lying out as a thank you to Zuki-san for her kindness before picking to or three scrolls to read. Then setting the scrolls aside for later he got to work learning his new Uzumaki special ability.

* * *

Today was Halloween. Over the last few days he had seen the gamekeeper Hagrid putting intricately carved giant pumpkins, and hanging decorations along the walls. It had seemed like a perfect day until out of the blue Harry had discovered something he had never known before. Yesterday evening he had been at diner sitting at the end of the table, reading a book on transfiguration, when Malfoy had walked up to him saying, "So Potter, Halloween tomorrow. Are we going to see you at the feast or are you going to be off crying somewhere?"

'What an odd statement to make,' thought Harry as he ate another spoonful of rice pudding, and deciding to just ignore the turd.

"Look at him," Malfoy said to his usual entourage of Crabbe and Goyle, "he's probably going to spend the whole day locked in a room somewhere bawling his eyes out." The boy said with a grin.

'Shit' thought Rupert, 'what does that little dick think he is doing? Hope I can stop this.' "Enough of that Malfoy, I'm sure you have somewhere else to be, your own table perhaps?" Rupert said standing up from his seat, trying to look as menacing as possible.

"What? I just wanted to know how your precious boy-who-lived was going to spending the anniversary of his parents death," Malfoy said trying to rub it in some more before laughing and walking away. Now while most people who knew the story of the downfall of Voldemort knew the date of the event, Harry was not one. Since McGonagall had told him of his parents death, Harry had felt the need to know more, but was also a little hesitant to actually do the research, constantly putting off actually discovering what happened. So while he never slept well around Halloween, he had never made the connection between the two. Hearing this news for the first time therefore was a major shock to the system. Harry suddenly stopped what he was doing as his mind seemed to go blank while it tried to process this information. Finally Harry's thoughts returned, 'my parents died on Halloween? Tomorrow is the anniversary of my parents death?... Hold on Malfoy said it, it's probably a lie. I need to know!' After sitting perfectly still for at least a minute Harry stood up from the table and quickly made his way to the library. Harry walked with a purpose through the library door and turned to head towards the History section. He scoured the shelves, checking every title, until he came across a book on modern history. Quickly flipping through the book he found the section on He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, turning to the end of the section Harry started reading, skimming through the chapter until he came to that night.

After reading one account Harry searched for another, and repeated the process. After looking through the third book Harry leaned back against the chair, closed his eyes and started to scream inside his own head, all his muscles tensing as the pent up energy looked for release. After a minute Harry left the library and ran out to the forest where he started doing punching drills against a tree until his knuckles were bleeding, knuckles which had callus upon callus formed over them through years of practice, and all his energy was spent. Hagrid was the one who found him a few hours later, leaning against the tree in question. Walking up to the boy the large man called out, " 'Arry, 'Arry, what are ye doing down here at this time of night?"

Looking up at the giant of a man Harry started to stand while replying, "Sorry sir, I lost track of time."

"No need t' sir me 'Arry, its just me, 'Agrid." The man said helping Harry up, and noticing his hands for the first time. " 'Arry, what'd you do t' yer 'ands. We need t' get you t' the 'ospital wing immediately."

"No…no, I'm alright, just received some bad news tonight, I'm fine, really," Harry said quickly as he backed away from the big man.

" 'Arry I know summink 'bout scrapes and bruises, and you need t' see Pomfrey," Hagrid said as he looked down on the boy. Seeing he wasn't getting through large man changed tactics, " 'Arry, I know we don't know each other very well, and I know 'ow I'm seen by most of the students at this school. But your parents were always good to me, so If ye want t' talk about summink me door is always open, and me mouth will do its best to stay shut, but right now, you need 'ealin'!" And with that the man picked up the boy, threw him over his shoulders and started carrying him to the hospital wing.

Half way across the grounds Harry was finaly able to convince the giant of a man to put him down, on the condition that they would both go together.

As he arrived at the hospital wing Madame Pomfrey walked out of her office exclaiming, "Mr. Potter, what are you doing here?" As her eyes started darting over his body looking for any obvious signs of illness before locking onto his hands. "What have you been up to Mr. Potter?" Quickly the school's matron had the hands up on an examining table and started to inspect the damage while muttering to herself, "boys, what will they get up to next...I swear every year there is something..." Finally after spending a few minutes looking carefully at the injuries she turned to look at Harry's face, "alright take a seat Mr. Potter. Now, I know this kind of injury Mr. Potter, we don't see many bloodied knuckles in the magical world, but I know the signs of a fistfight when I see one, I must say I am surprised to see them on you though." With that she walked to a large cupboard and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a viscous green liquid. The healer quickly applied a drop of the liquid to each of Harry's knuckles before grabbing her wand, and with a few gestures and some whispered words the skin started to repair itself. Within seconds the injury was gone, leaving only a slight redness behind to remind Harry of what his knuckles looked like earlier that morning. "Mr. Potter I doubt that you were in a fight, by the looks of those knuckles I would have already met your opponent, so do you want to talk about what happened?"

"I received some bad news and I had some energy I needed to burn off." Harry replied trying to keep his answer short and his face impassive.

"Aha, and do you want to tell me more…?"

"No thank you."

"Alright Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said with a sigh, "just remember my door is open when you wish to talk." With that Harry left to get ready for the rest of the day.

In Charms class the next day, Harry was sitting next to Leanne as they learned about the levitation spell. Harry had mastered this spell a few days earlier, he had always tried to stay ahead of his schoolwork before Hogwarts and saw no reason to change that now, even with the extra workload. Leanne on the other hand was having a little difficulty with it, so Harry was quietly trying to give her pointers, when suddenly Ron Weasley could be heard shouting the spell, causing everyone to start staring at him as he gesticulated wildly with his wand like he was a maniacal orchestra conductor or like he was trying to swat a bee with a stick, before the feather he was working on suddenly burst into flames and Hermione Granger, his partner, started hissing at him. "Oh Yeah" Ron yelled again, "If you're so great, you do it!." All eyes turned to the bushy haired girl as she loudly and clearly spoke the words of the spell and made carefully precise wand movements, causing the new feather in front of her to gently lift itself off the table.

"Look at that everyone, Miss Granger has succeeded, congratulation Miss Granger, ten points to Gryffindor." called out Professor Flitwick from the front of the room in an excited voice. After that the class got back to work, with almost all of the other students except Weasley, as he was sulking at his seat refusing to do anything, managing to complete the spell.

As they were leaving class and walking across the courtyard, the Hufflepuffs headed to the library for their free study class, and the Gryffindors making their way towards History of Magic. When suddenly Weasley who was walking surrounded by his usual pack of Gryffindors loudly decided to insult the only one who seemed to know what she was doing. 'Wow Weasley is such a prat' thought Harry as he saw Hermione run off knocking people over as she tried to escape the group. Leanne quickly seeing another girl in trouble handed her books off to Harry and ran after her, stopping along the way to kick Weasley in the shin.

"Ow! What did you do that for you silly bint." Weasley shouted as he jumped around on one foot.

"Probably 'cause of what you said about Hermione" Parvati Patil replied as she kicked him in the other shin and stormed off herself, quickly followed by the rest of the first year female population present.

That night at dinner Leanne and Hermione had still not shown up. The meal that did arrive at their table on the other hand was delicious. Harry was glad he had got into the habit of exercising almost every morning, because the food was just so good, and he definitely did not want to turn into a copy of his cousin Dudley. Besides the event this afternoon with Weasley, it looked like it had been a good day after all. Malfoy was even keeping his distance, something that Harry was thankful for as he did not know if he could control himself if the boy decided to be an idiot. Everything seemed to be going fine until Harry was about to start on his dessert. The mood was suddenly ruined by Professor Quirrel running in and stammering out, "T.T.T...Troll in the basement Headmaster" before collapsing on the floor seemingly unconscious. Quickly Dumbledore jumped up from his seat, "Prefects," he called out after he magically amplified his voice, "lead your charges back to your houses, Teachers, with me, we will spread out and search the school."

Rupert immeadiatly jumped up on the table and gathered the bottom two years while the older prefects took care of the rest. "Harry, Leanne is missing where is she?" Rupert called out after doing a head count.

"One of the Gryffindors made a girl cry and Leanne ran off to take care of her. I haven't seen her since."

"They're in the girls bathroom on the third floor," Susan chimed in. Looking around Rupert saw that most of the Great Hall was empty, and Jennifer Phipps, the other fifth year prefect had everyone else ready to leave.

"Fine, Susan head back to the Sett with the rest of the first years, Harry and I will go after the girls." Decision made Rupert and Harry started to make their way towards the door, breaking away and running for the third floor as soon as they were through.

As they reached the second floor they ran into Neville Longbottom who was jogging up the stairs. "Neville what are you doing?" Harry asked as they caught up with the boy.

"Hermione never came to the feast," the boy said as he tried to keep up with the other two, and talk at the same time, "I overheard the girls say she was in the third floor girls bathroom. She needs to know about the troll."

"And you thought you would go ahead and take on a troll by yourself?" Harry asked , dumbfounded.

"Good lad," remarked Rupert, "good to see one of you Gryffindors worried about someone else, although next time you might want to get someone else to go along with you for backup…Now let's pick up the pace, come on boys we are almost there."

They soon arrived at the girls' bathroom and quickly explained the situation to Hermione and Leanne. "O.K. kids" said Rupert, "here is what we are going to do, we're going to escort the Gryffindors to their entrance, then we will turn around and go back to Hufflepuff. Any questions? Alright Neville since you know where we are going you can lead the way followed by Hermione, then Leanne, Harry, and I will bring up the rear." Looking around and getting affirmative nods from the other students Rupert pointed at Neville, "Let's go!"

The group was now making their way back to the Sett after dropping Hermione and Neville safely outside the Gryffindor entrance, when things took a turn for the worse. They were coming up to the set of stairs to the second floor that would lead them straight to the basement when they were hit by an awful stench. Looking behind them they saw the troll, coming around the corner down the end of the hallway, clad in a burlap looking loin cloth and carrying a heavy wooden club. This was Harry's first encounter with trolls (they weren't covered until the third year, and Harry was not that far ahead yet) but luckily Rupert was there. Rupert immediately threw an Expeliarmus at the troll, followed by a Stupefy spell. The next thing Harry saw was the club fly out of the troll's hands, and head right at Rupert, colliding with his head and knocking him out, while the stunning spell seemed to do nothing. Harry quickly grabbed Leanne and pushed her towards the stairs shouting, "Run, go and get help!" before turning to try and save Rupert from the creature in front of him. The troll who had spent a few seconds staring at his empty hand, moved into action and started to run down the corridor with a speed that Harry had not suspected when he first saw the creature. 'Damn, I guess they make up for the general stupidity with speed and strength' thought Harry as he tried to come up with a plan. Harry quickly came to the decision that his usual fighting style was not going to work on a creature this big, other boys were one thing, Harry was fully confident in his ability to best anyone he might come across under the age of sixteen, but a troll was a completely different kettle of fish, so he started looking around for other options, his eyes finally falling on the empty classroom a few yards behind him. Harry quickly used the Wingardium Leviosa spell to lift up the club and send it flying down the hallway, striking the lumbering troll in between its legs causing it to fall to its knees letting out a bellow of pain. Harry quickly used this extra time to apply the same spell to Rupert to carry the prefect into a nearby classroom before closing the door, and trying to pile desks as many desks as he could in front of it. Suddenly just as Harry was beginning to relax he heard a voice behind him bark out, "What is all this business about, messing up my classroom like this?"

Turning around Harry saw an old wizard with a short squared off beard in a picture hung in the middle of the back wall. A confused look came across his face as he answered the picture, "I'm sorry sir…we uh, we ran in here to escape the troll."

"Troll? Well that is a development?..." the painting replied looking for some reason somewhat happy by the development, "What happened to him?" the man said pointing at the unconscious Rupert.

"He tried something, shouted Expelliarmus, the next thing I knew the troll's club flew out of it's hand and knocked him out."

"Ah the old Expelliarmus, it's used to disarm people, and if you can put enough force into it, you will actually knock them back. Unfortunately trolls are known to have skin that is partially resistant to magic." Suddenly a large boom and the door shook as the troll punched the door. "I would have used the Diffindo curse personally it is a severing curse, it doesn't take much power to give them a small gash, and if you're powerful enough it could take off its head."

"Thank you I will definitely get to work on that as I get out of here, but right now..." then an idea hit, "um, sir, I've seen the portraits jump from one frame to another, you don't think you could go and tell a professor I am in here?" Harry asked as another large boom shook the room.

"Oh…of course, sorry, bye." With that the old wizard disappeared leaving Harry by himself in the room with the knocked out Rupert as the troll continued to beat at the door.

It was a long ten minutes before Harry started to hear something beside the booming pounding of the troll, which had now caused the door to buckle and splinter, and for the hinges to start coming loose from the wall. A few seconds after that the wizard returned to the portrait, "alright boy you can move the desks now, the troll is dead." Harry quickly moved the desks out of the way and opened the door to reveal Dumbledore, McGonagall, Sprout and Leanne. As he stepped out into the hallway he saw Madame Pomphrey running up, she quickly pushed Harry out of the way and ran to help Rupert. After a few seconds of standing over the older boy, he woke up, and leaning on the school matron was led off to the Hospital wing. "Mr. Potter, it seems like you have had an interesting few days. Reginald and Leanne have explained everything to me, I must say running to help another student is very commendable, especially your actions after your friend was hurt. I think fifty points for Messrs Oldridge, Longbottom and yourself, and for Miss Church here, and I would recommend you take her back to your dorm." The headmaster said with a twinkle in his eye.

'That's it?' thought Harry as he stood there, 'just good job, now run off to bed little boy?' Slightly bemused Harry gathered himself together and walked back to the Sett.

Back at the Sett all people could talk about was the troll and Rupert. Harry on the other hand could not stop thinking about the portrait he had talked to. If the portraits could interact with you to the level he had noticed today, maybe they could be used as another stream of information. 'Tomorrow I am going to have to try to strike up a conversation with one of them, after all it can't be any worse than learning from a ghost.' Harry thought as he listened to Leanne tell their group about running after Hermione, and Harry sending her for help.

At the same time the staff were gathered in the Headmaster's office. "How could such a thing have happened Albus, I thought the wards protected the school from such things." McGonagall decried as she stood in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"The only thing I can think of is that when we brought the other one in to guard the item it must have affected the way the wards recognise trolls. I'll have Professor Babbling review the guard runes tomorrow, then I will double check the wards afterwards. That should resolve the issue."

"I'm just glad no one was hurt, except poor Rupert" Professor Sinistra said from her chair as she nursed a mug of hot spiced cider.

"Yeah, that were good thinkin' on young 'Arry's part" Hagrid chimed in from across the room where he was leaning against a bookcase.

"Yes the boy showed alarming calm under the circumstances" Dumbledore said as he leaned back into his chair.

"I must say I was impressed by his use of the Levitation charm, although aiming for where he did does show a ruthless side" commented Professor Flitwick with a slight chuckle.

"Very droll I'm sure" McGonagall replied with a sniff to let people know exactly what she thought of such antics.

"More than just droll Minerva, that act probably saved the boys lives buying young Harry the time he needed to barricade the door behind him. I must say he showed a better grasp of the spell than I saw from anyone in today's class."

"Well anyway, I think we have all had enough excitement for one day, so if you will excuse me Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we should do a final inspection of the school and then to bed." The headmaster declared standing up from his desk, causing everyone to start to make their way towards the door.

The next day Harry was walking down the hallways examining the pictures, trying to find one to start talking to, when he came across the portrait of a knight waving a sword around. "Good morning Sir Knight" Harry called to the man, causing him to stop and turn to examine Harry before replying, "Good morning to you to my boy. And how does this day find you?"

"Tolerably well sir," Harry answered back, trying to keep his language in the style he thought the knight would like, "Henry James Potter at your service sir."

"Sir Cadogan at yours Master Potter" the portrait replied with a bow before continuing, "I've heard of you, aren't you the boy that had that dealing with the troll last night? Jolly good bit of work on your part, it's all the other portraits will talk about. Of course had I been there I would have dispatched the creature with all possible speed" the knight said as he waved his large sword.

"That would have been useful, if I knew how to use such a weapon."

"Yes you should learn, every gentleman should know how to wield a blade."

"Well,… could you teach me?" Harry asked hesitantly.

The question stopped Sir Cadogan short, his mouth hanging open for a few seconds before he remembered to close it.

"I don't see why I couldn't... You know, I haven't had a squire in centuries. Ha," the knight said letting out a short laugh, "It would be great to do it again, and I do have the time at present…Let me have a day or so to converse with a few other people, and I will find you and get back to you when I have come to a decision."


	7. Chapter 7 New Skills part 2

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them, or anything else in this story.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis.

Ch. 7, New Skills.

Harry had not spoken with Sir Cadogan for a week now, and the boy was starting to get a little anxious about the whole thing. The-Boy-Who-Lived, as he discovered he was sometimes called, was currently sitting in the library looking for any books the school might have on pureblood families, and famous British Wizarding Families, hoping to find anything he could about his heritage. So far Harry had discovered several books on pureblood customs and the British Wizard Government, otherwise known as the Ministry of Magic, which he had set aside for later study 'after all,' the thought process went, 'I'm a part of this society now, I'd better learn how it works.' After another forty-five minutes of searching the shelves, picking up books, flipping through them and finding nothing of immediate value, Harry decided to pack it in for the night and head back to the Sett.

Five minutes later, making his way along the History of Magic corridor, on his way back to the Hufflepuff quarters Sir Cadogan jumped into a nearby frame, waving his sword over his head trying to attract Harry's attention shouting "Potter, Young Potter my boy wait."

"Sir Cadogan, it's good to see you again, I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me" the boy said with only a touch of humour in his voice as he walked over to the knight.

"My apologies for the delay but when I started discussing the idea with a few of the other fellows, several became very interested, and the next thing you know I could not get a free minute to talk to you. I think I have been approached by nearly every portrait of a previous teacher in this school." Here the knight paused to catch his breath as he now leaned against a nearby tree. "Do you know that there are more past professors hanging around as portraits in Hogwarts than we have actual faculty members in the school?"

"No sir Cadogan I didn't," 'although now that I stop to think about it, it does make a certain degree of sense.'

"Yes loads of 'em, and let me tell you being a portrait is no easy life, and few people actually stop to talk to us. After a few years of being hung up everyone is ignoring us, and unless we can find something to occupy our time it can get pretty boring."

"Are you saying that there are a large number of competent, knowledgeable professors hanging around the school who would be willing to tutor me?" Harry asked his voice full of incredulity at the startling discovery.

"Oh Yes! And not just the paintings, when he heard you were interested in learning the sword Sir Nicholas almost challenged me for the opportunity to train you, we just couldn't figure out a method for a ghost to fight a painting. Therefore we have decided to share you. We will teach you how to fight with a sword, and how to use a shield, buckler, or a dagger, and some hand to hand combat as well, and a few years when you are stronger I will teach you how to use a great sword like mine."

Harry was stunned at this sudden turn of events. 'Wow I will be able to have my own teachers, I won't have to double check every potion Snape writes on the board, I could get explanations to the theory questions that come up. I wouldn't have to hang back at the end of class to ask what I should be reading next, shoot maybe they'll be willing to do something as simple as homework review.' As these thoughts were running through his head a recent memory from two days ago popped to the forefront when he had seen Justin go up to Cedric Diggory to ask for help with his transfiguration homework. The memory gave Harry an idea. "Sir Cadogan,… how would the portraits feel about tutoring more people than just me?" Harry asked.

"I'm sure they would be delighted Master Potter. How many more students are we talking about?"

"Oh, roughly a quarter of the school. I was just thinking, Wouldn't it be great if Hufflepuff dominated the school this year in the exams? Not Ravenclaw with all their intelligence or Slytherin thanks to all the studying their parents give them at home, but that bunch of ol'duffers Hufflepuff? Harry asked a grin.

It took a second or two for the idea to sink in, then Sir Cadogan burst into a hearty laugh, "Capital, absolutely Capital, and none of the actual professors will be able to figure out why until we decide to tell them. I must say I like the way you think young man."

"Thank you Sir Cadogan, do you think the portraits will be up for it?"

"Oh most assuredly,… they will love it."

"Wonderful, then all I need to do is arrange things with my house." Harry was turning to leave when he realized he'd forgotten to ask an important question. "Oh Sir Cadogan, when does my sword training start, and where should we meet?"

"Ah, yes, thank you for reminding me. The good news is that the school actually used to teach the sword, so there is a training Salle inside Hogwarts, it just hasn't been used in over a hundred a fifty years. We shall begin this coming week's end. After breakfast on the Saturday go to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the fourth floor. There you will find a picture of some magicians shooting spells at targets. Tell them that they 'should be using Expeliarmus', and the picture will swing away, leading to the old Salle."

"Thank's Sir Cadogan, I'll be there. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to hurry back to Hufflepuff to get back before curfew, and I need to set things in motion for the tutoring." With that Harry made a quick bow to the painting and continued back on his journey to the Sett feeling much better about how his day had turned out after all.

Harry had gotten back to the Sett in good time and was now sitting in the corner of the common room revising his History of Magic notes and waiting for Rupert to show up so they could discuss the tutoring idea. As he sat there Harry looked around and took in a sight that, a few years ago, he never thought could exist, him, in a room full of people who didn't loathe him. In the middle of the room a few second years were playing Wizards Chess, a game Harry had recently learned and was enjoying, although he wasn't nearly as good as most of the rest of the house who had been playing it almost their whole lives, over on the side of the common room a few other Hufflepuffs were swapping treats that their parents had recently sent them, a game of Gobstones was keeping some of the other badgers occupied, while another contingent sat around in a heated discussion on broomsticks. Everyone was relaxing and winding down from a hard days work, and Harry did not have to worry about being attacked, or sent to clean the shed.

It was another thirty minutes before Rupert made an appearance, coming down the stairs from the dorm rooms. "Rupert, can I have a word in private?"

"Of course Harry" he replied leading them down into the study area and into an empty room.

"Now then Harry, what did you want to tell me?" He asked as he closed the door and cast a silencing charm at the door.

"You know how two days ago you were asking that sixth year about differencing numbers to increase their potency?" Harry asked, stumbling a little at the end as he tried to recall exactly what he had heard Rupert call out.

"You mean differentiating numbers to increase their potency Harry, and yes I couldn't figure out how Professor Vector was coming up with either her numbers or their potency."

"Well how would you like a tutor?"

At this Rupert started chuckling, "Harry I didn't know you were an Arithmancy expert?"

"Me? No, I don't know anything about it, I'm not even sure what Arithmancy is. But I do know someone who might…

You see I struck up a conversation with a painting a few days ago and he pointed out that there are more paintings of past professors than there are practicing professors in the school."

"I've never thought of it but I guess that makes sense, after all Hogwarts has been around a while."

"Exactly, and most of them are bored. After all they have been hanging around a while with nothing to do. So some of them approached the painting I was talking to and offered their services as tutors, I in turn asked if they would like to be tutors for the whole house, something that would give Hufflepuff a leg up in the school standings."

Rupert couldn't believe his ears. He had spent an hour pouring over his notes and his books before he went looking for anyone who could explain it to him, a tutor he could sit down with and who could explain everything to him would be a godsend.

"Harry this is brilliant. We would not only have someone to double check our work but we could also end up ahead of the curve."

"My thoughts exactly. The only subject I'm worried about is History of Magic, I mean, who knows how long Binns has been teaching here."

"That aside though it is going to take some organization. I was hoping you could get the Prefects to set up a schedule and pass the words amongst the rest of the Sett for me."

Not for the first time Rupert Oldridge stopped to take a good look at this boy. Here was a child who in Rupert mind was truly a hero, and now he had done something that would make him the toast of Hufflepuff and he wanted to fade into the background. "Sure Harry" Rupert said, squeezing Harry's shoulder, and giving him a kind smile, " don't worry about a thing, we will take it from here and get this rabble organised, and I won't tell the rest of the house who they have to thank for it."

Hearing this news Harry gave a smile of his own, thanked Rupert for his understanding and went back upstairs to watch a few games of Wizards Chess and see if he could pick up anything.

* * *

'Stupid cat' thought Naruto as he made his way back to the Hokage tower, looking at the evil creature that seemed to sleeping peacefully in Misu's arms. Finding the Fire Daimio's wife's cat was one of the most annoying D rank missions in the village. It seemed like at least once every month that cat made a run for freedom, and at this point Naruto wasn't sure if the cat just really hated it's owner or someone like the Old Man had specifically trained that cat for his or her own evil purposes. Either way that was four hours Naruto wasn't going to get back. "Mission Accomplished Ojii-san" Naruto said as the group shuffled into his office.

Before anything else could be said a large woman grabbed the cat from Misu's arms and started to seemingly be trying to asphyxiate the beast in a giant hug crying out, "You found him, Oh thank you, I am never going to let you go ever again. How could you run away from mommy? Bad Girl" before the woman left the room while continuing to both berate the cat and hug it to death.

"Congratulations Team, another successful mission, although Naruto, what took you so long." The Old Man said as he lit his pipe and leaned back against this chair, "Keep up the good work, you're team seems to be doing well Hamaki-san"

"Thank You Hokage-sama" the jonin replied with a bow.

With that the four left the Hokage Tower and made their way to Ichiraku for Ramen and to discuss how the mission went. They did this after every mission, with a different member choosing the location every time.

"Four hours chasing that damn cat!" grumbled Makoto as he sat down on one of the stools at the bar.

"I just want to know what that woman does to that cat to make it run away so hard, surely at this point it would be more humane just to put the poor creature down." Misu stated as she laid her head down on the bar as if to go to sleep.

"Oh stop your complaining," Hamaki-sensei said with a chuckle, "and don't feel too bad, we did pretty well if the stories the other Jonin instructors told me is anything to go on. On top of that you worked well as a team. I think you are almost ready for some C rank stuff as soon as you get your Jutsus up to scratch. Work hard on those and you'll finally be able to stop doing all these D rank chores."

"Or you could just give us C rank missions now Sensei, come on how tough can they be for awesome Ninja like us?" Naruto asked as he struck what he thought was a cool guy pose.

"When you're ready Naruto… It is like the tree exercise, you should learn to walk before running up it as fast as you can." Hamaki-sensei said with a snort of laughter, "How are you getting along with your hand seals anyway?"

Naruto suddenly turned a few deeper shades of red while he scratched the back of his head, "Not bad sensei… I have the Kawarimi and the Henge no Jutsu down to just two seals, but my Bunshin is still at three, I can't seem to make it any less, or produce less than 7,… Oh and the Oiroke no Jutsu is still just one."

"So not as much progress as we would like then, and you want to go on a C rank mission?...You're all almost ready, but you're not ready yet. Now let's order, 'cause I'm hungry." With that the team turned to Ayame to place their order, and go about the serious business of eating.

After the meal was over the team 14 went their separate ways, for the rest of the day. Misu and Makoto to their family business and Naruto to his room to work on his Occlumency. Getting back to his apartment Naruto closed the blinds on all his windows and squatted down in the living room to get to work. Naruto had only been working on it for a few days, not soon enough to see any results yet, but the idea of his jutsu kept him at it, sure in the knowledge that is would eventually pay off.

Two hours later Naruto finished his mental workout and decided to work on his body before going over to meet with the Old Man to let him know exactly what abilities Harry was trying to teach him. It had been about two weeks since he had got the OK from Ojii-san to have the new Uzumaki special ability, enough time for him to have technically received Harry's scroll so long as he didn't wait for a reply before mailing it. Naruto quickly took off heading for the outskirts of Konoha.

Because Konoha was a ninja village there were a few rules that the civilians needed to remember. Two were that they were not allowed on the rooftop, and that they weren't allowed on the city walls. The first rule was so that the ninjas wouldn't have to worry about people getting in their way as they moved along the rooftops, the second was because, along with the idea of keeping the wall free of civilians so that the ninja knew who was up there, and therefore who was friend and who was foe, a few ninja, starting with the Maito Gai the "Green Beast of Konoha" liked to use the wall as their personal running track, all 18 miles of it, from one side of the Hokage mountain to the other, or in the case of the blur that just ran past guard post number 6, Naruto.

'I think it is time to increase my weights again' Naruto thought as he strolled into the Hokage's office, his hair still wet from the shower after his workout. He had managed to match his personal best for the run and was feeling pretty optimistic. Shifting gears Naruto called out to his old mentor, "Hey Ojii-san, how has your day been so far" as he came to a stop in front of the man's desk.

"Naruto It seems like I saw you just earlier today. What brings you back?" the Hokage asked grateful for a chance to take a break from the paperwork that his assistant seemed to believe was needed.

"Just thought you should know what one of the special Uzumaki special techniques is going to be."

"Oh, Hen-ry has sent you a list?"

"Nope just what the first one will be. I thought I should let you know as you will be picking the person who might test it with me."

"Smart thinking Naruto. I see all that time with Zuki-san seems to be paying off." The Old man said as he leaned back in his chair and packing his pipe, "So what will you be trying to master?"

"A discipline that will hopefully make Genjutsus completely ineffective. It is some kind of mind power that should make it so that no Genjutsu can affect my mind."

Sarutobi suddenly stopped all movement in fact Naruto was surprised he didn't fall out of his chair (an act he had actually been hoping for when he first thought about talking to the Old Man about it).

"Naruto, that is amazing. Do you think it will work?" The old man stammered out.

"From What Hen-ry writes I don't see why it shouldn't, although I wont really know for a while yet. I have to train my mind a very special way. If you can arrange for me to be tested against light Genjutsus at the end of the month though I can hope that I will have had some success by then, I will probably still be at the beginner level but who knows what that means in terms of fighting off these jutsus."

"I must say Naruto I am impressed, both with you personally and with your team. Hamaki-san says that you are a very squared away team."

'Wow' thought Naruto as he broke out in a blush and started to scratch the back of his head, 'Sensei said that? I can't believe it! I need to tell the rest of the team, he never says stuff like that to us.' The sudden praise shocked Naruto so much that he could only stutter as he said thank you and made his way out of the Old Man's office.

* * *

Harry couldn't stop looking around the Salle since he walked in a few minutes ago. Harry had imagined a stone hall with a few suits of armor around it and maybe a few picture frames for the paintings to watch the students in their practice. Instead Harry found a large rectangular hall with a door on each wall. The shorter far wall was devoted entirely to books. The two long walls had every type of sword, dagger, axe, halberd, or just general blade that Harry could imagine hung along them. There were also several dummies were set up in the middle of the hall, some in robes and other in armor. Lastly there were several doors along the wall with the paintings. One led into an exercise room with lots of heavy objects to lift, another actually opened up to what appeared to be a fairly large looking garden, with a pond in the middle, a garden that Harry had never seen before, 'how can this fit inside the grounds' Harry thought as he looked over it from the doorway. The third door turned out to be a closet filled with cleaning supplies.

"Ah Harry good of you to get here so promptly" Sir Nicholas said as he glided down the stairs without making a sound. "Yes we have a proper gentleman on our hands here" agreed Sir Cadogan as he took up a place in one of the frames.

"Now then Harry my boy today we are going to start with some fitness and agility tests. It would be stupid to try and teach you the long sword until you are strong enough to even try and properly wield it, so once we have established your baseline we will expect you to do some work with the weightlifting fairly often." Sir Nicholas declared as he walked out into the garden.

Hearing this Harry couldn't help but let out a little chortle, 'It looks like these guys don't know me very well' he thought as he tried to get back in control. For the next hour Sir Nicholas had Harry running laps and doing reaction drills. He also wanted him to do some swimming,

"What do you mean you don't know how to swim" Sir Nicholas asked, his voice laced with incredulity, "How do you not know how to swim?"

"My relatives never taught me how." Harry pointed out as he stood there casually not even breathing hard after half and hour of working out.

"Well that is something we will have to change, and right quickly too. Swimming is a great form of exercise, uses all sorts of different muscles that it is a great way to stay in shape… alright there is nothing I can do about that for now, and I can't teach you to swim as there is no way I could rescue you if something goes wrong but I'll ask around, maybe when the weather is warmer you can have someone teach you in the lake."

A half hour after that episode though Harry finally finished all the tests Sir Nicholas and Sir Cadogan thought were important, and although he was sweating a bit, only feeling like he had done a light workout.

"Master Potter, I must say I am impressed, you have done a far better job of keeping in shape than the rest of these wizards" Sir Cadogan complimented from his frame.

"Yes, good base stuff to build on" Sir Nicholas added as he made his way over to the wall of blades, "Alright Harry well we still have another hour before we are done for today, so I want you to go over to the wall and take down the long straight sword above the heavily jeweled curved Tulwar" he said pointing to a rapier hanging on the wall, "also pick up that sword there," he said pointing to another, "and that slightly curved blade over there" he said lastly before going to the center of the room. Harry quickly went to get all three weapons, having to cast the _Wingardium Leviosa_ spell to get the second sword down, and awkwardly carried the three to the middle of the room. "Alright boy lay them out and take a seat, we haven't got all day." Sir Nicholas said as Harry stood in front of him, holding the blades out in front of him.

"Now then Harry my boy," he said as he began his lecture, and started gliding back and forth, "what we have here is a quick history of the western sword. Behind me you will see one of those ridiculous coats of armor, each grasping their large bulky sword, those are long swords, and Sir Cadogan will be teaching you how to use them eventually, although I don't know why anyone would want to" he mumbled under his breath for only Harry to hear, "After that people started to desire something smaller and more wieldy so we got things like this sword," he pointed to the large sword with a basket hilt that had been the cause of Harry's trouble bringing them over, "This is a claymore, very popular when I was still alive, you can see that we moved from the two handed behemoth to a one handed sword, which gives you more maneuverability, but it still packs enough punch to hurt someone even if they are wearing armor. Then shortly after I died people started to move to something lighter, like the rapier here, and the saber" he said, stopping to point at the sword with the much thinner blade and the fancier hilt than the claymore, and the blade he had Harry pick up last. "The Saber is more of a cutting weapon, but the rapier relies on both the edge and the point…well come on boy pick it up, you need to know what you're dealing with," Sir Nicholas said coming to a stop and waiting for Harry to take the time to actually examine the weapon before deciding to continue with his lecture. After giving Harry a few seconds to truly look over the blade he continued, "The blade is much thinner, like a large needle, meaning that even though you can, and will it's primarily used as a stabbing weapon. Therefore because of the finesse required to handle it, it is considered the appropriate blade of a gentleman, and for dueling. We are however going to teach you to use both the point and the edge. A duel is all well and good, but winners write the history books." the old ghost said looking Harry directly in the eye before starting Harry on the basics.

Sir Nicholas started by teaching Harry the correct stance, the basic guards, how to move and lunge, spending the time to make sure Harry was doing things correctly. Then he did something miraculous that Harry didn't even know was possible. He glided up to one of the wooden dummies and seemed to fuse with it, almost like he was sinking into the dummy, causing it to suddenly start moving. Harry was so startled he dropped the rapier, the look of shock turning to one of embarrassment when the sword clanged against the stone floor. At this Sir Nicholas jumped out of what Harry had thought moments before was nothing more than a practice target, "Haha, didn't know we ghosts could do that did you?" Sir Nicholas said with a large smile on his face.

"You can take over things?...Can you take over anything?" Harry asked as a frightening thought of having his body taken over by some evil ghost came to mind.

"Have no fear Master Potter, we can only take over inanimate objects like this dummy, we mainly use it as a defense mechanism, or as a way to spook the muggles, but it also gives me a way to spar and teach you things, like to be ready for anything. Now," he said his tune changing from joking to angry, "Don't You Ever drop your sword like that again. A man who doesn't respect his tools isn't much of a man. Your sword could save your life someday, so respect it and make sure it stays in good condition. Now I am going back in," the ghost said pointing to the dummy, "I will advance and attack, you will react as best you can using what we've looked at so far you, and if you see an opening don't hesitate to take it." With that the ghost faded back into the dummy and waited for Harry to get ready before it started to move, forcing Harry to react either blocking with the guards he had shown, or retreating w hile looking for opening.

After twenty five minutes Harry had managed to strike the dummy three times and, thanks in no small part to his other training, and his years avoiding Dudley, had managed to successfully block, what he felt were, many of Sir Nicholas' basic attempts to hit him, before the old ghost called a halt to the whole affair. The knight had still been able to land a lot of hits, Harry looked over his body and knew he would have a few fresh bruises tomorrow.

"Well done Harry, very well done, much better than I expected in fact." Sir Nicholas could not believe how agile and quick this boy was, Harry level of athleticism had meant that Sir Nicholas had needed to try a little harder than he expected in order to hit the boy. "Now, put the swords back where you found them, and I expect you to practice what you have learned until it becomes second nature a little every day. Now Harry I saw you starting to break form a few times and swing wildly, you do get more power swinging with your arm and using the side of the blade, waving it around like you are trying to mow down fields of hay, but you also move slower, yes your wild slash did block my attack, but I hope you noticed each time I was able to hit you right afterwards, as you were out of position for the next attack. There are sword fighting styles based around slashing and cutting, to be used with weapons like the saber, and I will be teaching them to you later, but I would recommend the rapier and the style we are concentrating on for now, as it will enhance your control when it comes to the heavier and more unwieldy weapons."

After that they returned to the exercise for another ten minutes before Sir Nicholas once again stopped.

"Like I said before Harry you are in very good physical shape, but you are going to need to work on your wrist strength. A strong and flexible and controlled wrist will also help with your spell work, so I expect you to work on it."

Next Harry spent more time working on the forms and holding his position locked in place, before returning to the exercise against a ghost controlled dummy. Lastly he ended the session in the weight room where Sir Nicholas led him through some exercises that would work on Harry's weaknesses.

Harry left the salle more tired than he had expected. His usual workouts nowadays went for just as long, but the constant changing direction back and forth and the short quick movements weren't something he got much practice with since he didn't have an opponent to push him, especially since he left Dudley behind (who was also significantly slower than Sir Nicholas). 'I will need to see if I can increase my time with Sir Nicholas, knowing how to block is useless if I am too slow to actually use it' thought Harry as he made his way into the showers, to get ready to enjoy the rest of his day.

That evening, after a nice afternoon spent flying on one of the school broomsticks, and admiring the change in the look of the forbidden forest, as autumn truly took hold, Harry was in the Sett playing chess against Zacharias Smith, and losing, when Rupert Oldridge rescued him,

"Harry can I have a word with you in private please." Rupert said as he walked up and interrupted Harry who was staring intently at the board.

"Ouhhh, Potter's in trouble" Smith crooned.

"Of course Rupert, Zach do you mind if we finish this later?"

"Meh, call it a draw, I need to go and get a letter off to my parents anyway, or my mum will send a howler."

"Thanks" with that Harry followed Rupert off to a quiet corner.

"Harry everything is set. We will call a house meeting next week after the quidditch game, we have already organized how things are going to be set up, and we will start the Wednesday after we get back from Christmas," Rupert exclaimed in an excited voice.

With the holiday break only a week or two away at this point the idea made sense.

"Great I will let the paintings know, do we have any sort of plan set up?"

Yes, we're going to give each year an evening, seven years seven days. First years will get Sunday, Second years Saturday, Third years Friday and so on. After all rank has its priviledges" Rupert said with a smile.

"Fair enough, I'll tell the teachers. Now though I won't know what I am looking forward to most next week, my first quidditch game or the meeting afterwards."

"The quidditch, your first match, then definitely the quidditch," Rupert replied as he ruffled the younger boys hair before heading to join some of the boys in his year who were gathered around the fire drinking mugs of hot cocoa.

* * *

Naruto sat in his room shivering. He had not expected **that** when he started his occlumency training. had noticed many positive things as he started to organize his mind and build up his mental defenses. He finally had all his jutsus down to one hand seal, thanks to his ability to analyse things both faster and more clearly. Due to his work on Occlumency he was forced to study his actions as he sorted his memories. This led him to discover his stumbling blocks in his hand seals, among other things,things he could now devote time to practicing until they were both more correct and natural. His mental ability had also improved a lot, the time it took him to think through a problem, or read a scroll had noticeably gotten faster.

But now as he started to work on his mental defenses the fist "hiccup" occured.

As he started to work on his mental defenses, something happened. One second he had been laying out how he was going to defend his mind and his senses, and the next he was somehow standing in a sewer, staring at a giant beast locked behind a gate.

**"Well well well look who decided to finally come say hello!"**

"Ki..Ki..Kiuby?" Was all Naruto could stutter out as he looked up at the creature, that was at least 10 times his size, with a healthy dose of fear.

**"Ha, that is Kiuby-domo to you whelp"** the fox replied all nine tails waiving around behind him in a confusing, but still somehow threatening motion.

'How can these bars hold him back?..Well only one way to find out.

**"Well say something Whelp!"**

"how about I just call you asshole!"

**"You Dare Mock Me? I will crush you, you pathetic worm!"** the demon replied charging the bars, only to be humbled as he crashed into them and the gate held.

"Yeah, I dare mock you mister angry fox stuck in a cage. Oh if only I had a stick to poke you with...Hold on,... this is my mind..."

**"You wouldn't dare!"**

"Oh... Apparently we haven't met, Hy I'm Uzumaki Naruto" the boy replied in a deliberate voice that matched the large smile on his face as he held out a hand.

at this a low growl could be heard coming from the fox as he stared at the boy as if he were an annoying ant at a picninc.

**"Rip off that seal and say that, I dare you!"** the creature said pointing to the large seal holding the gate closed with one of his tails.

"What you think I'm some kind of Baka? No way."

**"Kit, one of these days I'm gonna get free, on that day, I will make it my job to spend years killing you as slowly as possible."**

"The day you get free will be the day I die. On that day, I wont care."

**"Then I will go after any family or friends you develop, trust me on this, you will pay."**

"but in the meantime... Sit... good foxy. Now I've got work to do, so leave me be." And with that Naruto left, leaving his Occlumency practice to curl up in a ball and try to deal with dealing with one of the most angry and powerful beings that anyone had ever met. It was another four hours before Naruto who had decided long ago that nothing was ever going to truly beat him, headed back into his mind to set up his defenses. In two weeks he had his meeting with Ojii-san to test his new ability, and he wanted to be ready.

A week before the meeting Naruto was already showing improvement. He had almost managed to master the tree walking exercise, able now to run up and down a tree with only a little preparation before hand. Still not enough to use it in the middle of a fight, especially with the slight disorientation that occurred with the change in axis, but enough to creep up on an unsuspecting enemy and drop down from a limb above him. He was now practicing this, after a suggestion by Zuki-san, in his room, practicing his Taijutsu as he moved up and down the walls, and along the ceiling. So far it wasn't going badly although he had fallen a few times and was sporting a few bruises on the top of his head, which would be only a memory come morning, the slips also caused him to realise his need to work on his reflexes, as he tried to do a flip while falling, hoping to land on his feet. Finishing up the exercise, and falling 4 more times, Naruto made his way to the training ground to meet up with the rest of team.

Arriving at the training ground he saw a trap line just behind the entranceway. 'Well this is something new' thought Naruto as he came up with a plan. Using his tree walking technique he quietly climbed up and over the walls of the training ground, before launching a Kunai at the wire. As soon as the knife sliced the wire a net sprung from the ground, potentially capturing its prey, causing Misu-chan to run out of the bush she had been hiding in… only to discover an empty trap, and to suddenly be tackled from behind by Naruto.

"Hah, better luck next time, you will have to do better than that to catch the best ninja in the village." Naruto said as he struck his favorite cool guy pose.

Sitting up Misu-chan could not believe it, "how did you know it was there? I have spent days perfecting that genjutsu… there is no way someone as unskilled as you in that area should have been able to see it."

Hearing this caused Naruto to start jumping for joy inside 'Yes! The training works, I am starting to block these stupid mind jutsus.'

"Well I guess I'm not as unskilled as you thought. I am after all the greatest ninja in Konoha!"

"Baka, no your not," replied a now humbled and angry Misu-chan, "everyone in the village knows the number one ninja in terms of ability and looks is Neji-chan."

"What? That Hyugga? I am easily twice as good as he is. The only reason he did better than me in the academy is because of those eyes and all the clan training."

"That's what you say, and I notice you didn't fight the handsome statement," Misu said in a tone of superiority as she finished dusting herself off.

"What does being good looking have to do with anything, and if you find large bug eyes good looking then maybe, I on the other hand have a much more evenly proportioned face."

This statement drove Misu to defend the official heartthrob of their class, "You take that back, he is not bug-eyed" she said as she made a fist and started to advance on her team mate, much to the delight of Makoto who had arrived half way through the argument and was enjoying the banter between the two of them.

"Alright, break it up" Hamari said as he appeared in a poof of smoke and pulled Misu away from Naruto. "I am glad to see you are full of fighting spirit Misu-chan, you will need it for our lesson tomorrow. For now let us head to see what kind of mission the Hokage has for us.

At the Hokage tower they were assigned the mission of walking the Inuzuka dogs. Naruto had discovered early in life that the Inuzuka's dogs didn't seem to like him. As a child he had put this down to the village's general hatred of him, but now he understood it was his scent of fox that sent them off. This gave him an idea. "Guys, I've got a cunning plan. Those dogs don't really like me, they wont bite me but they will chase me, so if you go in there and tie them all together loosely so they can still move around, then I will go in and they can chase me, I will lead them to the outskirts of town and I'll run around the base of the wall." By now the rest of team 14 was used to the way that the rest of the people saw Naruto. They still didn't know why, but they were used to the reality of it, although the fact that this extended to dogs was new to them.

"Alright Naruto, we will wait for you at the base of the Hokage monument and reign them in there and walk them back. That should give them enough exercise," Misu said after she thought about it for a moment. With that the three set about their responsibilities, and besides one civilian who was unfortunately crossing the street at the wrong time, the whole event passed by without much fuss, in fact the villagers seemed to love the spectacle of Naruto being chased by a pack of dogs, and by the end of the ordeal all the dogs seemed very tired, and maybe a little crestfallen to have not gotten that damn fox, but happy because, there's always next time, and the chase was fun. In fact they were returned in such a happy state that Tsume Inuzuka, the head of the clan, made sure to remember to request team 14 the next time the task was going to come up after Kuromaru told her how happy the rest of the pack was.

By the end of the mission Naruto felt like he'd been run ragged, almost getting caught just as he ran past the Hokage monument. 'Damn those dogs were fast' Naruto thought as he slowly made his way to his usual stool at Ichiraku's.

just as he was diving into his fourth bowl though his old friend Rock Lee walked in.

"Hey Lee, how're you doing, I haven't seen you since the team assignments" Naruto called out cheerfully.

"Naruto, good to see you again, although I should have known I would've run into you here."

"So how are you dealing with all these D rank missions?"

"Well we were all getting a little angry about them, but two weeks ago Gai-Sensei started to give us our first C rank, so far we've only had one, an escort mission by a pompous businessman who wanted to impress people by having bodyguards, nothing happened."

"Geez, you guys are lucky, Hamaki-sensei won't allow us to do any C rank missions for another month. How are you doing with your weights, I am up to thirty pounds on each leg, and twenty on each arm" Naruto said as he rolled back his sleeve to show his friend..

"Wow Naruto you are doing great, although I wish I had thought of arm weights, but I am up to fifty pounds for my legs."

The news that not only was he behind the other team in mission achievements, but was also behind his friend with the weights brought Naruto to a stop. It seemed like no matter how hard he worked there was always more work to be done.

"Well I bet I can eat more ramen than you!" Naruto said, determined to win at something.

"Ha, You're on, my flames of youth burn through more ramen than you!" replied his hypercompetitive friend.

With that they both dove in, Naruto into his fourth, Lee into his first.

Fifteen bowls later Naruto leaned back, letting out a large burp, which in turn freed up some space. Looking over Lee was clutching his stomach leaning back, trying to get his body to digest at least some of the twelve bowls of ramen he had just consumed.

"You win Naruto. This time you win," Lee said in between large breaths before rolling off his stool and stumbling out of the restaurant, looking for something that might make him feel better. Watching his friend leave Naruto calmly slurped down an errant noodle that had somehow escaped him earlier, before finally turning to Teuchi.

"Poor boy couldn't hold his ramen"

"Naruto, no one can compared to you" the old man replied with a smile, "now you have had more than enough for one night, you need to get home and rest so you can work properly tomorrow."

"Hai, Hai, slave driver, I guess I will see you later Teuchi-san." With that Naruto pulled out his Toad shaped wallet and paid his tab before leaving, and heading home across the rooftops.

Across town all the new jonin instructors were wrapping up a meeting with the Hokage to compare notes. "Mimura-san, how is your team doing?" The Hokage asked as he leaned back in his chair and started to unwind after a hard day of running the village.

"Very well Hokage-sama, my team is ready to take on a C rank mission, although I would like to delay their start until next month. Aside from that I have no complaints they have very good teamwork, and should all develop into strong Ninja, although they are a very overeager group, but I hope delaying their first major mission will help calm them down some."

"That is good to hear, I have seen Naruto chomping at the bit to get moving already. If you hold back a C rank mission much longer he might explode," the old man said with a chuckle before turning to the next team, "Maito-san, how goes the number one team of this rookie class?"

"Their flames burn bright Hokage-sama, although I am worried about Neji-san. He never displays any emotion, and while he works well with the rest of the team at the moment I am not sure he is truly accepting them yet."

"Yes one of these days I hope to see any member of the Hyuga clan express some emotion beside annoyance, although I've heard that Hyuga Hinata is different so that might be something to look forward to next year. How did you feel they did in their C rank mission?"

"They all managed to behave very professionally, even though no threats presented themselves they never let their attention waver."

"That is a good thing to see, hopefully they can keep that level of enthusiasm up… Alright well I think that wraps everything up for tonight. Thanking you all for coming, and for taking the time to train these genin, and I will see you all next month, when hopefully the reports will not have changed too much."

With that the Hokage lit his pipe, closed the large scroll that was laid out on his desk, and watched as the jonin let themselves out.

* * *

"...Now then we have something new starting after Christmas, a new tutoring source. The Paintings of former teachers have decided to help out Hufflepuff where they can. We will be breaking this tutoring up by year, so as you go through the week take note of what issues in class you are having issue with"

Harry had been listening to the George Abner, the seventh year Hufflepuff Prefect, and therefore the Hufflepuff head boy describe the process for the last five minutes as he leaned against the back wall of the Sett's common room.

"I know some of you don't like the idea of having the extra help no one else knows about, it seems like cheating in the house standings, but we are also being used as a test basis, if it's decided that this works, and if the paintings decide that this is something they want to keep on doing they may bring the other houses into it, but for now the paintings would like us to respect their privacy, which is something I think we can all agree to, and do our best to show everyone why they shouldn't underestimate us."

This last bit struck Harry as weird. He knew it made him the odd man out of this group, but Harry had learned from an early age that there was no such thing as fairness, and therefore had no qualms about not revealing the secret tutors to the rest of the school. As Abner continued to drone on Harry thought back to his day so far, it had been an odd one, starting during his morning work out.

[That morning at the end of his workout Harry had been doing a cool down run that took him passed Hagrid's hut. As he came around the bend in the shore of the lake he saw a large dog running at him. Unsuprisingly Harry slowed down considerably, fighting other people he could do, but attacking a dog just seemed wrong, it was also something he had never thought he would face, made doubly troubling by the fact that he did not bring his wand to his morning work outs...

The whole issue was rendered moot however when the large animal jumped up on him, knocking the poor boy to ground, before proceeding to lick his face, only stopping when Hagrid ran up and called him off.

"Sorry 'bout that 'Arry, but it seems like Fang 'ere really likes you."

Harry slowly stood up, and went to pat the large dog before turning back to its owner, "Not a problem Hagrid" he said as he started to scratch Fang's ears like he had seen dog owners do at the park, "he certainly is a friendly animal. What kind of dog is he?"

"Fang 'ere's a Great Dane. So what are you doing up and about this early in the morning?"

"Oh just taking in the morning air, I like to exercise a bit in the morning, get the blood flowing, and prepare for the day."

"Well, would you like a cup o' tea?"

"Thanks Hagrid that would be nice."

A few minutes later Harry was sitting in Hagrids hut in an chair made for someone at least twice his size, his feet forced to dangle off the ground, being regaled of stories Hogwarts past (it turned out that Hagrid actually knew Harry's parents fairly well, and showed him a picture of them all on their wedding day), and of strange animals that the large man had collected as pets in the past or wanted to have in the future, dragons in particular.

"You know them Weasley boys" Hagrid asked Harry.

"Only the younger one, and no offense but if he is anything to go off I am not in a hurry to meet the rest, we don't really mesh."

"Too bad that, twins are right terrors, good boys though, always come up with some new prank, keeps everyone on their toes and breaks up the day t' day routine, but they've an older brother, Charlie, now he's a Great lad, went off t' foreign parts studying dragons… Nice boy writes me every now and then, let me know about 'em. 'oping in a few years to travel and see 'em meself" the man continued.

By the end of his third cup of tea, the second one being knocked over by Fang who was jumping around Harry hoping to convince him to play, Harry had tried to leave pointing out the need to shower and change before seeing his first quidditch game, and enjoying his weekend with his friends. This led to another five minute talk with Hagrid talking about when James Potter had been on the Gryffindor team as a world class chaser.

Later, after lunch Harry had experienced his first wizard sport (if you don't count chess, which Harry didn't). It had been amazing, there they were all the different players swooping and diving, dodging and weaving, and constantly trying to get that weird shaped ball through those hoops. Looking at it he could understand why someone would want to be a chaser. He was sitting next to Longbottom and Granger supporting Gryffindor, as neither Hufflepuff nor Ravenclaw were playing, and they were if not friends, at least people he respected and wanted to be friendly with. The Gryffindor Chasers and Beaters were clearly superior to their Slytherin counterparts, and their Goalie was amazing. Harry became even more excited the first time he saw the snitch, "Longbottom" Harry said grabbing the other boys shoulder, "why don't either of the Seekers go after the Snitch over there?"

At this the shorter boy started looking around where Harry was pointing before giving up and replying, "because Harry, much like the rest of us, they can't see it."

"Oh…of course, sorry" Suitably abashed Harry went backed to watching the game.

But in the end, the game had been fairly one sided. Wood the Gryffindor Goalie had done an admirable job, making a few saves that seemed to defy the laws of magic and science combined, and even though six of the seven players Gryffindor players were better than the Slytherins, the Slytherin Seeker was much better, after faking the Gryffindor into a dive that almost left him with several broken bones, Higgs had gone off and easily caught the Snitch without much of a fight from his opposite number who had been looking over on the other side of the pitch for the illusive golden ball.]

Abner had now moved on to a different subject, "If anyone is planning to stay here over Christmas, I need you to give me your name by the end of the coming week so that I can pass it along to Professor Sprout."

The Christmas holiday was going to be three weeks long, and there were a lot of things Harry could do in that time, 'I do want to go and buy a wand holster, and I could do some shopping in Diagon Alley and the rest of London. Also there was that idea of finding a martial arts dojo and seeing how my skills rely do compare. On the other hand I could stay here and get really ahead of my studies.' Unfortunately now that Harry was trying to spend a few hours a day in the Salle, he had realized that he no longer had much time to read ahead, at least he hadn't this weekend, what with the game and everything. Longbottom had also mentioned that he would like someone to help him with his studies and so he and Hermione were going to try and collaborate on that. All this meant that soon he was going to be pushing himself just to get his homework done on time, let alone read ahead and take care of his muggle studies. The clincher was the time, that and the cost of finding a hotel room for three weeks on Christmas, because there was no way he was going to spend that time at the Dursleys. Three weeks was not enough time to really do everything he needed done in London, but it should allow him to make sure he was properly ready for the coming term. With that decision made Harry headed out to go and do some training at the Salle.

Harry hurried out of the Salle aware that it was after curfew. Between working out and the different books on fighting that they had down there Harry had lost track of time. Walking by the entrance to the library he heard voices, looking in he saw Granger and Longbottom again with books spread all over one of the tables. "Oi you too, don't you know what time it is."

"What are you talking about Potter?" Longbottom asked, looking up from the textbook he was pouring over.

"It's after curfew, hadn't you noticed."

"Curfew,…Crap. Come on Hermione we'd better get back to the common room."

Quickly the two Gryffindors started packing away all their school supplies and closing all the books creating a neat stack before heading out.

"So what were you too up to in there anyway" Harry asked letting curiosity once again get the better of him.

"Hermione was tutoring me. I need the help, especially in potions."

"What about you Potter, and why do you always call us by our last names" the auburn haired girl asked.

"Me" Harry thought quickly, "I was exploring the school… There are lots of hidden passages all over the place, some need you to speak code words, others to hit the right spot like the wall into Diagon Alley, and the only way to find them is to explore." Harry finished, pleased with his explanation.

"And using our last names?" She asked again as they walked down the hallway

"I prefer to call them Surnames, and we haven't spoken more than a hundred words to each other up till now, hardly grounds for me to be going by your first names now is it. Plus do you know how many Johns and even Nevilles we have in this school? Only way to distinguish people is to go by last name."

"He's right Hermione. Most people here address each other by last name. The only reason I don't call you Granger is that you introduced yourself as Hermione and it was only four hours later after we had been talking for a while that I learnt your last name. At that point changing would have looked stupid."

They continued to talk as they walked down the corridor until they heard Mrs. Norris, the Caretaker's cat let out a hiss at seeing them.

"Shit!" Said the two boys together as the quickly looked around for signs of Filch. Hearing the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs in front of them the three quickly turned around and ran in the opposite direction. Turning left they tried a new corridor until they reached a dead end. Faced with no new corridor to run down the three headed for the only room down that end of the corridor, only to find it locked, something that was easily remedied with the _Alohamora_ spell courtesy of Harry as Hermione was still catching up. As fast as they could the three ran inside, locking the door behind them. Stopping, they listened to the sounds of the caretaker's footsteps fading away as he searched down other corridors for the missing pupils. Finally letting out a breath the three first years started to relax, which is as far as they got in the process, for it was then they saw it. A large three headed dog.

'A Cerberus. This must be one of Hagrid's pets' thought Harry as he looked up at the snarling animal.

"I think it was time we were leaving, and given the circumstances Potter, I think you can call me Neville."

"Thank you Neville, please call me Harry."

With that they tore open the door, grabbed Hermione by her shoulders and dived out of the room, slamming the protective portal behind them.

"Well no one can say Hogwarts is boring" the plumper boy declared as he sat on the ground trying to regain his breath.

"Yes, but I think that is enough excitement for me." With that the three made their way back to the entrance of the corridor before going their separate ways back to their houses.

Twenty minutes later Harry finally made it back to the Sett. Sitting in his bed a short while later, sorting through his memories of the day, reinforcing everything he had seen that day. It was upon examining the memory of that night that he suddenly noticed something he had not noticed the first time around, the dog was sitting on a trap door. 'The only reason for a dog that size to be in a room that small with a trap door underneath it is because it is guarding something' thought Harry, before deciding that with everything going on in his life right now, trying to go somewhere the school obviously didn't want you to go was a mystery for some other time. With that Harry lay down and went to sleep.

* * *

"Good morning Naruto. How are you doing today?" The Old Man said as he met Naruto inside his office. He had already made sure that besides himself and Naruto the only other people who would be here was Yuhi Kurenai, Konoha's genjutsu mistress. Even the Anbu had been told in no uncertain terms that they were to show up four hours late today.

"Fine Ojii-san, looking forward to seeing how strong this technique really is" the boy replied as he made himself comfortable.

"Good, good we are just waiting on one more person and we can start. So how are things going outside of the missions. I hope you are working well with your team."

"They're great Ojii-san, they train hard and they don't mind the way everyone seems to hate me."

"that's good to hear" the Hokage said with a smile even though the reminder of the boys status brought back why he was doing all this for the boy. At that moment their conversation was broken up by a knock at the door. Opening it up Naruto discovered a tall dark haired kunoichi with red eyes.

"Ah Kurenai, come in. So good to see you again. I am glad you were able to make it."

"Hai Hokage-sama, may I ask why you wanted me here so early?"

"Of course" the old man replied as he sucked on his pip, "you are here today to test a secret genjutsu defence. Everything we do here today is classified an S class secret that you can only reveal to the people in this room or any future Hokages of Konoha. That being said we are going to go into my training room through that door. Naruto" the old man said turning to the boy, "in six minutes you will also go in. We are going to launch some weak genjutsus at you when you come in, your job is to walk into the room and just describe the place to us. Understood?" Receiving an affirmative nod the old man took the young woman's arm and led her into the next room shutting the door behind him.

When Naruto's watch told him that six minutes had elapsed he slowly made his way towards the Hokage's training room, not sure what to expect. He had spent several hours yesterday working hard on his Occlumency, worried about what he might encounter today.

Opening the door he stepped inside… to see the Hokage and the Kunoichi standing in one of the corners, neither was talking to each other but both seemed relaxed as the stood there. Quickly Naruto started looking around for anything, seeing nothing on the first pass he took a closer slower look, before finally walking up to the Hokage "So Ojii-san, when are you going to start with the genjutsus?"

This statement caused a smile to come to the old mans face. "Congratulations Naruto, you did very well, don't you think so Kurenai?"

Almost as if this was a signal the Kunoichi stared directly into Naruto's eyes, just staring for a few seconds, causing Naruto to start to feel very uncomfortable.

"Is everything ok with her Ojii-san" the boy asked shifting his eyes over to the old man.

"Yes Naruto everything is fine" the Hokage said with a chuckle, "come on let's go get some ramen."

Shrugging off everything that was meant to be going on in favour of ramen Naruto smiled and headed for the door, leaving a very angry Kunoichi behind.

It was on the way over to Ichiraku's that it happened. Naruto was jogging around the Hokage talking about anything he could think about, when suddenly a tree seemed to spring out of the ground and wrap around him holding him captive.

"It seems that your defenses aren't perfect yet." Kurenai said with a smile as she seemed to come out of the tree, laying a knife across his neck.


	8. Chapter 8 C is for

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them, or anything else in this story.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis.

I want to take a quick second to point out a change for you readers who read me regularly. When I first posted ch. 7 I posted that the circumference of Konoha was only 7 miles. This, you may have noticed was also in bold type, this was because I meant to change it before posting, after all when you figure all the shops, and the fact that it has an apartment complex, the village itself must be rather large, especially once you add all the training grounds. Anyway unfortunately the 7 somehow got past my reviewing process. I have therefore changed the circumference of the walls to 18 miles (the same as the circumference of ancient Carthage), not counting the mountain range that the walls back start and end at that holds the Hokage Monument.

Ch.8 "C" is for...

Harry was glad that the Christmas holiday had finally arrived. Normally during the school year his day started at five in order to get in his workout and morning Taijutsu practice out of the way. At seven he would return to the dorm to shower and change, making it to breakfast by seven thirty before his first class began at eight thirty. Classes would continue until twelve thirty, with a half hour break in the middle. This was followed by lunch and then blessed freedom until four giving the teams a chance to hold quidditch practices, and for the other school clubs to meet. During this time Harry could normally be found, if anyone had occasion to look for him, in the library, or down in the training Salle. Classes then continued until six, followed by dinner with the rest of the evening to yourself, which for Harry meant anything from more time in the Salle weight lifting and running through sword drills, or working on his homework and his muggle studies, then just hanging out with his fellow badgers in the common room before heading up to bed by nine thirty in order to get up and do it all over again. With all this Harry was no longer as far ahead in his schoolwork as he had once been so the Christmas break was an opportunity to get ahead of the curve again and possibly to look into several of the side projects he had been putting off. Instead of just keeping his skills sharp he would now be able to expand on them.

Having already completed his morning workout before the coaches left, Harry wanted a break before his next course of action so with no one around he decided to visit Hagrid, the man seemed all right, and maybe he could learn about that three headed dog, 'wouldn't that thing frighten the heck out of the Dursleys' Harry thought.

"So Hagrid what is with the Cerberus on the third floor?" Harry asked as he sat there sipping his tea. They had spent the last twenty minutes talking about different secret passages the boy had found, with the exception of the one that led to the training Salle, the chasses so far, the quality of the food, and about how Hogwarts used to be. Harry was also interested in how Hagrid had been able to raise so many seemingly dangerous animals in a school where so many people were looking over your shoulder, especially when you figured in the paintings and the cramped living quarters.

"'don't know what your talkin' 'bout Harry" the big man responded.

"I am talking about the large three headed dog that is squashed into that room on the third floor" the boy said giving Hagrid a knowing look, "I mean I would think that a dog like that would need a lot of room to run around and exercise, and not be stuck in that cramped a room."

"Well Fluffy's actin' as a guard dog i'n't he, so for the moment 'e 'as to stay there, but it's only temporary."

Harry's brain almost came to a stop on hearing the dog's name, "you named the large three headed dog who, at least the one time I met him looked extremely angry, Fluffy?" He asked his voice lilting upward at the end carrying his surprise.

"Well yeah, and he isn't that bad, he just needs a little attention, you play a bit of music and he becomes as docile as a lamb. But anyway, what were you doing in his room?"

"Escaping Filch, I had lost track of time and was making my way back to the Hufflepuff quarters after Curfew." Harry replied simply.

"Oh HO, out after curfew, you'd best be sure yer not caught, what were ye doin' that made ye so forgetfull?"

"I was just leaving the library with a few Gryfindors, one of them needed extra help" the boy responded carefully covering up his own actions.

After meeting with Hagrid Harry's stomach reminded him it was time for lunch, where due to the lack of students it seemed like they had consolidated all the remaining people into one large table up where the teachers usually sat. The boy arrived to find almost all the seats taken, quickly he found a space near the south end which, unfortunately meant Harry wound up sitting opposite Ron Weasley, the good news though was that he was now sitting in between the twins, who had arrived after him and had taken the last two spots on either side of him.

So your…"

"…Harry Potter" The two brothers said as they looked down on the younger boy.

"Yep and you're Fred and George Weasley, by the way which one is which."

"You here that Fred…"

"…Harry Potter knows our names George…"

"…were famous brother."

"In deed we are brother," the two boys replied in jovial tones letting Harry know they weren't trying to be snarky.

"Yup we Weasleys rule this school" chimed in Ron, only to have everyone look at him rather oddly, almost as if they were wondering why he was there.

"So are you two really the greatest pranksters in the school?" Harry continued after a second.

"Of course we are…"

"…Although it's not hard, no one seems to want to try and compete anymore."

"That must make life a little dull."

"Yeah, for the last two years there was a group in Ravenclaws that would at least try and do something every now and then…"

"…But since they graduated no one else seems interested in keeping things lively."

'Damn', thought Harry, 'this would be the perfect time to console them while sticking something to the back of the robes, or a quick jinx. I need to be more prepared for this sort of thing.'

"So where do you get the best products, before the year started I was looking over the stuff they had at Gambol and Japes, but I didn't see any other joke shop."

"Ah, a boy after my own heart Fred", said the twin on the left swinging an arm around Harry.

"I can tell George, I can tell" the twin on the right said throwing one of his arms around the boy too.

"Gambol and Japes are good, and they are conveniently located in Diagon Alley so when the family goes shopping you can too" Fred said.

"But Zonkos in Hogsmeade is much better, unfortunately though you either need a copy of their catalogue or you need to get into Hogsmeade." George continued

"Which you don't get permission to do until your third year."

"But the best option of all…"

"… is to learn to make your own."

With that there was a large bang and a good bit of smoke, and Harry found his chair flying backwards. Harry quickly tucked himself into a ball, and rolled over the back of the chair as it collapsed, using the momentum to spring to his feet behind it, wand drawn and ready.

"Wow…" was the only word that escaped their mouths as they took in the boy's display of acrobatics.

"wow yourself, I've got to say I wasn't expecting that," Harry opined as he with a bit of embarrassment dropped his wand back into the pocked where he normally carried it.

Before any more could be said however they heard the distinctive sound of someone clearing her throat, and turned around to stare at Professor McGonagall.

"And what do you boys think you are doing?" she asked in a voice that promised stiff penalties.

"Nothing Professor" all three boys managed to say at once.

"Mr. Weasley, Mr Weasley," she said fixing both of the twins with a stern glare, "I hope you are not picking on a first year in another house!"

"No Professor, actually just the opposite, I was asking them about fireworks and they were kind enough to provide me with a practical demonstration" Harry said, quick to jump to the defense of his new aquaintances.

"That's right Professor, we were actually…" Fred jumped in

"…Working on Inter-House Cooperation."

"Hnn" The woman said letting out a huff conveing her disbelief and disapproval of the antics before going back to her own seat.

In now new stunned amazement the boys watched the first year pick up his chair and sit back down again, before picking up the rice in front of him serving himself, and asking George to pass the curry. The rest of the meal went well, with Harry asking lots of questions about pranks the twins had done, and the two Gryffindors eagerly highlighting their exploits to the younger boy. After lunch there was a snowball fight which everyone enjoyed, Harry more than most it being his first. Later, back in the Sett, as Harry was putting on some dry clothes he realized that Hagrid had been right, the twins definitely were good people.

* * *

"Alright team" Hamaki said as he stood in front of his Genin, "I am thinking of putting you up for your first C ranked mission."

"Yes!" shouted Naruto as he jumped into the air his fist raised above him in victory.

"Calm down Naruto. Before I do it though I want you all to run through an obstacle course to show you are ready." Hamaki paused for a moment to give the information a chance to sink in before continuing, "When I say Go, I want you to run to guard post 10 on the Konoha wall, where you will each slap the hand of the guard who will be waiting for you, then run to the south end, and come back here. You will then run to this line and throw four kunai and four shuriken at the six targets, trying to hit each one in a debilitating or killing spot. At least one must only be incapacitated, so that we could collect him for questioning at the end of the mission. Next, you will run as a team to training ground eight, where you had all better arrive at the same time, and where you will accidentally bump into two enemy (he said raising his hands in the air to form quotation marks) Chunin who I have agreed to help me. Once you have fought them for ten minutes you will break off the fight in an orderly manner, and return to this point, avoiding any traps along the way… Every one understand?" Hamaki waited as he saw each of the children digest the information, "oh and you only have three hours… **GO**!"

With that shout the three turned around and ran for the exit of the training ground, heading for post 10, roughly a mile away. Quickly all three headed for the rooftops to avoid anybody getting in their way as they sped towards the wall. Arriving at the head of the line Naruto quickly through himself into a dive, rolling as he hit the guard wall to come to a stop right in front of the waiting Chunin. A quick slap of the hand and he was off hoping to go even faster than normal. As Naruto was passing post 11 he let his mind drift over the task. The time meant that he had to push himself, but not to any limit he wouldn't normally do so, he would be out of breath by the end, no doubt about it, but so long as nothing went wrong and they got lucky with the traps they should be fine he thought. Soon he saw the face of the mountain looming up even larger in front of him, and Naruto decided to prepare for the next bit. The blond haired Genin carried his run up the side of the mountain a little ways using the cliff face as a break zone before he was able to turn and jump down into the trees to carry himself back towards the training ground. He also used it as a chance to see how his teammates behind him were doing. Misu-chan was only slightly behind him, and Makoto was bringing up the rear not too far back. It looked like they might make it. Arriving at the training ground the boy chose to run up the side of the wall and jumped down to the throwing line, reaching for his Kunai and Shuriken holsters in mid air. Unfortunately this was where the first mistake happened. Coming in to land with hands full of sharp objects Naruto did not hit the ground as gracefully as he hoped. Luckily nothing was injured except his pride, but precious seconds were wasted collecting his belongings and settling down to throw, trying to drive the fall out of his mind. He quickly sized up the distance and position of his new opponents, about half were standing out in the open, but a few were lying down, and one was hiding about half his body behind a tree. Naruto started throwing, aiming for the eyes or the heart on each one, except for one. The one he chose for capture was the one standing in front of a tree in stead of behind it like his smarter friend. For him the Genin aimed for his wrists, putting as much force as he could into the throws trying to drive the knives through the wrist and pin the target to the large tree behind him. Taking a minute to compose himself Naruto waited for the other two to finish this section.

Once all three were done they headed for training ground 8, only a little over two miles away. This was when the second disaster struck. Running from rooftop to rooftop, Makoto accidentally slipped on a loose roof tile, causing him to lose balance and fall, landing on the ground, luckily avoiding injury, but slightly dazed from the experience, within two minutes though they were running again, although this time a little more cautiously. Finally the trio made it to the next event where they actually did, physically, bump into the two Chunin, causing all three to lose their balance. Team 14 had been skidding to a stop, and apparently the enemy had not been expecting them so quickly so were standing around with their backs turned. This was where experience came to the fore, and the two Chunin, able to steady themselves much quicker, were on them before they were ready. Immediately on the defensive the three backed each other up as they looked for openings that would allow them to use their superior numbers against the bigger and more talented competition. Misu, as soon as she was able threw down some smoke bombs, hoping the confusion would give them a chance to regroup, only to find that their enemy was apparently used to this and did not let it slow them down at all. Naruto then tried to circle around them while Makoto and Misu kept them occupied only to have both Chunin jump backward throwing shuriken at them, forcing all three of them to dive for the ground for cover. Finally after another minute or two of this the team got organized and Misu fell back to her normal support role and let the two boys try and hold their own. This at least allowed the teams to balance out, and cut down tremendously on the beatings being received by the Genin team. Finally there time seemed to be up, or at least Misu felt like it was, and with a shout of the code word "Reinforcements" the team started to draw back, covering each other until they were out of the training ground.

With only one thing left to do, the team started to make its way at a cautious jog, back to the training ground using Konoha's streets, making sure not to hug the walls in order to give them a better opportunity to see around the walls, and to not appear suspicious. That was until Misu stopped dead in her tracks, and all three dove to the side to hug right side. As the one who had not been in the thick of the fighting, she was the least knocked around, and because of that, the least out of breath, which also made her the most alert, making her the front man in their column…

After a few hand signals back and forth Makoto hopped lightly over the fence that they were hugging, reappearing around the corner a minute later giving them the all clear sign. This gave Naruto an idea, calling every one in he hurriedly whispered his plan, "Listen, why don't I move along the rooftops, Misu you move down the center of the street like we have been doing and Makoto, you hang back and keep an eye on both of us so if something happens you can either back us up or alert the other person. If any of us see anything let out a yell, or bend down and look like you are messing with your sandals, then Makoto here can let out a bird call."

A few hurried nods was all the answer he needed and Naruto quickly made his way up to take the ninja highway back in. Moving at a slightly faster pace than before, but nowhere near the break neck speed they started out at three made their way towards the end of the course, not breaking out of the loose formation they had set up until they were all the way inside the grounds walls.

"Congratulations team, two hours and fifty six minutes total" Hamaki declared from right behind them, causing the exhausted trio to jump in surprise. "It looks like you get to do a C rank after all." Hearing this news the trio collapsed on the floor, tired but happy. "Now what happened with those two Chunin. How The Hell do you actually manage to bump into your enemy like that? And then on top of that you three completely forgot everything you spent hours learning, at least for the first four minutes. Misu, really, smoke bombs? If they give an advantage to Genin over regular people, why won't they work even better for Chunin as well, Chunin who, might I remind you, have had years more practice with them? Makoto you really need to watch where you are going. Falling down from a slippery tyle? What will happen when you need to move quickly through the trees in the rain? And Naruto, the showboat of the group, I bet you even though of trying to throw a few of those kunai while you were still in mid air didn't you? Get the basics down before you try stunts like that! You're lucky you didn't cut or stab yourself!" He said as he looked at them in exasperation, and shaking his head for a few seconds before continuing, "Alright you three, go home and get cleaned up, you can take tomorrow off and I will see you all in the Hokage's office at Nine the day after. Don't be late or we will be doing three D ranked missions instead." With that the old Jonin dismissed his group, who had all jumped to attention and ended looking very embarrassed from the dressing down they had all received, and made his way off to the Jonin bar to brag about how well his team had actually done. After a minute or two of awkward silence the three team members said there good byes and headed their separate ways.

* * *

Christmas day was a shock to Harry. Leading up to the day the holiday had been wonderful. Between making friends with George and Fred, getting ahead in his schoolwork and his martial arts studies things had been going well. He had also started work on another letter to Naruto, informing him of all the great things in the castle, the moving and talking portraits, flying on a broomstick and all the other things he had seen and experienced. That letter had started a few days ago after an event in the Salle when he finally achieved one of his benchmarks,

_Flashback_

"Success" breathed Harry as he allowed the feeling of victory to wash over him, relaxing all his muscles. The boy was sitting on his bed with the curtains drawn and had finaly managed to get the leaf sticking exercise to work for twenty minutes. He knew he was only in the early stages of mastering the technique, but it was still a step in the right direction. 'At this place I will be using the Henge and the Bunhsin in no time' the boy thought to himself as he got up to start stretching his legs. The next step he could do in the Salle as he was the only student who knew where it was and only only had one painting, and that was only filled during his lessons by Sir Cadogan, the rest of the time it was empty while the old knight tried to woo several of the maidens fair in the other portraits, or training, preparing to fight the dragon that never left its portrait on the sixth floor (going up to talk to the dragon was on Harry's to do list, but by this point the list had grown so long that he was now just going to wait until he had a reason to be up there).

'Alright, good progress, definitely some good news I can share with Naruto. Now, my first jutsus.' Harry had put some thought into this, and had decided to start with the Henge. That decision reached Harry started to push his magic into the seals he had spent some time in the evenings getting down right, thanks to Naruto pointing out the importance of being able to use them at a moments notice. Now that he knew about Chakra learning to manipulate it, beyond the leaf exercise seemed like the obvious next step, but Harry discovered very quickly, making these jutsus isn't as easy as one might think, especially when you have no one to really train you. After an hour he had made little progress, he could feel the chakra, or magic, or whatever you want to call it, start to respond to the seals, in the same way that it did when he used his wand, but then somehow it would all fall apart. Harry figured it had something to do with the idea of turning the magic on himself, something that he had no practice doing. He was always pushing it out through his wand, or through a specific part of his body as he tried to master the leaf exercise, so the idea of turning the magic inwards without any obvious way to direct it seemed to be the problem. 'I'm gonna need to study this tonight when I'm going through my Occlumency drills, but I'd also better send a letter to Naruto asking him if he has any ideas.' After working for the problem for another thirty minutes Harry accepted temporary defeat, and hurried back to the Sett to shower and change before lunch.

_End Flasback_

Harry woke up Christmas morning slightly later than normal, figuring to treat himself to an extra half hour of sleep as another present to himself, the idea of spending Christmas away from the Dursleys being a present in and of itself, no need to wake up early for all the cooking that was needed, no watching his cousin unwrap box after box of presents while he received nothing but the dishes to clean, and (as was sometimes the case) no chance of Vernon's sister Marge showing up, a woman Harry could be easily convinced was actually a form of general evil. The sleep in seemed to have been enough though, because as he approached Hogwarts on his cool down run Harry was shocked to see the Weasleys out and about having a snow ball fight in large Jumpers with their initials on them, even Percy, the eldest and stuffiest of the Weasleys at Hogwarts, was taking part.

"Alright Harry, what've you been up to this early?" called out Fred as he bent down to make a snowball before flinging it at the boy.

"My morning run, same as usual" Harry replied, "the question is what are all 'f you doing up so early?"

"Its Christmas!" exclaimed Ron as if that answered everything.

"Ron likes to get up and opens his presents as early as possible, back home mum wont let him do it until all the family is awake so he always wakes us up at some ungodly hour on Christmas. Don't you little Ronnikins" George explained launching a snowball at his younger brother, still peeved at being up so early. With that snowball though any attempt at conversation ended, and Harry eagerly joined in on the fun.

The next surprise occurred about an hour later as Harry walked back into his dorm to get changed as he noticed a small stack of packages at the foot of his bed that were definitely not there when he left. 'Who the heck would send me packages? Naruto doesn't celebrate Christmas Harry thought to himself as he went to shower, 'should I have gotten anybody anything?...What's do you even get someone for Christmas?'

After he had finished changing he made the decision to open them. The first one was from Hagrid and held a wooden recorder that had been obviously carved by hand. For several seconds the boy sat on his bed holding the instrument as he looked over every angle of it. Slowly he put his fingers to the holes and started to blow into it to see if he could hit any reasonable notes. Back in primary school they had had a few basic music classes, in one they had all been handed a plastic version of this exact instrument and taught the basics, so Harry was familiar with the instrument, even if he did not have much experience with it. Now he spent a few minutes seeing what sounds he could make, and even trying to play the tune he could only half remember from a few years ago.

After a few minutes of playing with the recorder Harry turned his attention to the largest package, which was also the softest. This one also turned out to be the oddest. In it was a, thin cloak that changed colours as it was moved, with a short note saying, "_Your father left this in my care. I thought it was time it was returned. Happy Christmas."_

'Well this is an odd gift thought Harry as played with the cloak, watching it change colours as it slipped through his fingers. 'Well better see what this looks like on me' with that he threw the cloak over his shoulders and went over to the large mirrors in the bathroom to see the affect… only to discover that he wasn't there, or at least most of him wasn't, only his head was visible. The discovery was so shocking that Harry caught himself patting his body with his arms to double check. 'Wow' thought Harry as he looked at the effect. Quickly the boy flipped up the hood attached to the cloak, only to see himself completely disappear. 'An invisibility cloak… these things are real…This Is Amazing… I wonder how common these are, after all why wouldn't you own one? I definitely need to include this in my letter.' Harry could hardly contain his excitement as he spent the next few minutes taking the cloak on and off, marveling as the image of himself appeared and disappeared in the mirror. The last package was from Rupert, he had gotten Harry a box of chocolate frogs, something that didn't take much examination at all… well maybe a quick taste test, quality control is important after all.

By the end of the day Harry was exhausted. After opening and playing with his presents Harry had gone down to lunch, where he was met by more food on one table than he had ever seen before. After a delicious meal, where he got the chance to thank Hagrid for his gift, he had needed a nap, but the twins had invited him to the Gryffindor common room, where he had played Wizards Chess, and the twins had talked with him about ideas for pranks. Remembering some of Naruto's ideas he had suggested one obvious one that they had not thought of, 'lads, have you thought about redecorating one of the potions labs, so that it would be wall to wall pink, with large fluffy leopard print cushions, with table cloths and doilys, and vases filled with fresh flowers all over the place, make the place so feminine and twee that you give Snape a heart attack when he walks in, hopefully with some kinds of sticking and strengthening charms so he cant destroy it or remove it too easily?"

There was dead silence from the pair for a few seconds, before George wiped away an imaginary tear, and smiled at his brother.

"Fred"

"Yes George"

"Why didn't you think of that?"

"I'm pretty sure that Idea was your responsibility."

"Harry" they both said together as they turned and each grabbed one of his shoulders

"We like the way you think."

"We should save this one though" commented George.

"Yes doing it too soon would ruin it," his brother agreed.

"I am thinking right before the exams."

"Everyone will need a break"

"You don't want young minds being overstressed."

"It will be for the public good to do it then."

At this point the two burst into cackles and were lost in their own little world for the next 3 minutes.

Hedwig had also been happy to see him as he arrived with the now complete letter for Naruto that evening. "Hey girl" he said as she swooped down and settled on his shoulder, "Sorry we haven't seen each other in a few days," After being sorted and going to live in the Hufflepuff dorm Hedwig had moved to the Owlery, uncomfortable with all the people constantly around her master. Since then she would join Harry for his morning workouts and the boy would try to visit for a few minutes at least once a week. After a few more minutes of talking with her, she took the letter and flew off into the night, leaving Harry to return to the Sett. Back in the Hufflepuff quarters Harry once again started to play with his cloak some more, when he realized one problem, 'if I ever drop this thing somewhere I am going to lose it. I need to learn some kind of tracking or locating charm so I can at least find it again…Well no time like the present to test this thing out.' With that it was only seconds before the cloak was over his shoulders and he was out the door headed for the library.

Harry stood in the Charms section of the library just having gone through his sixth book without finding the specific spell he wanted. 'Damn it' thought Harry, as he put the book back 'Why can't this library have a decent card catalogue. There must be a better magical way to find what one wants.' He had now been in the library for thirty five minutes and had still to find what he wanted, and the _Lumos_ spell he was using to see by was giving him a headache, 'first thing I do when I get back to Diagon Alley is getting the night vision spell put on glasses. This is ridiculous, how did I forget the last time.' That is when his brain started working again and he wanted to kick himself. After berating himself for a few seconds he walked briskly over to a sleeping portrait, and knocked on the picture frame until the old witch inside it started to wake up.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'm sorry for the interruption but I was wondering if you could help me."

"Ehh? What? What are you doing in the library at a time like this boy. This is well after curfew."

"Yes ma'am, I know but I was wondering if you could help me find a specific spell."

"Ah, you must be that Potter boy that everyone has been talking about," she said as she squinted as if to get a better look at Harry, "Well, what do you want, I was having a nice dream and I want to get back to it as soon as possible if you don't mind."

"Yes ma'am, I need a tracking or locating spell that I can put on my belongings. You see I got this cloak that makes me invisible, and I don't want to put it down someplace and lose it."

It took a few seconds but then the portrait started to laugh.

"Gosh boy, I can see why all the other paintings like you," she said as her laughter got under control, "well you certainly came to the right place… Alright a good tracking charm you say." The portrait stared off into space for a few seconds before finally turning back to Harry. "I think if you find Emilia Barton's book A Mother's Spell Book you will find what you want, it's full of useful household charms like that, after all young children are always losing stuff. Also if you look in Ralph Oswald's book, Wilderness Survival, A Guide, that has some spells about locating things like water supplies, finding hidden items, and sensing magic. Either one will have what you want."

"Thank you ma'am, that was really helpful. I will pick both of them up. Quickly grabbing the two required books Harry dropped them into his satchel and made to return to the Sett, where he could read in the common room and get rid of the annoying _Lumos_ spell.

'…room cleaning…laundry folding…washing dishes… Ah, here it is the Lost and Found charms, page 237,' quickly turning to the page Harry found that instead of one spell, two were actually needed, a marking charm and then a reciprocal locating charm. 'So to make the mark I need to make a circular motion and then touch the point of my want to the object, say the word _Notare_ and identifying it by a specific name…' "Be careful not to give the same name to two items or both will cancel each other out, and you will have to remark both items." Harry read from the book. 'Great so there could already be five or six marks on this thing, along with who knows what other things. I wonder if there is a way to run a check for specific types of spells on an item.' Well that seems like a job for tomorrow at the earliest.' After that Harry practiced on the sofa cushions until he had both the marking and the finding charms down before turning to his cloak and performing the spell exclaiming, "Notare Cloak," causing the garment to briefly glow blue, a sign that the spell had worked, before packing everything up and going to bed.

* * *

"First Mission" Naruto cried as he sprinted along the rooftops on his way to the Hokage tower. He had been calling out these words every few minutes since he woke up this morning, and continued to do so as he made his way to meet his team. Landing in the lobby he saw Misu and Makoto leaning against a wall waiting for him.

"First Mission today" he exclaimed as he approached them, "What do you think, are we going to be rescuing a princess from a horde of evil bandits, or guarding one of the Daimyo's sons as he goes on a peace mission to Rock country?"

"Nope, rogue ninja have managed to sneak across our border and we are going to be sent to bring them in," Makoto replied getting into the spirit of the event.

"Well you won't find out until you go in and receive the mission from the Hokage," Hamaki said as he joined the group and led them towards the Old Man's office.

"Good morning Naruto-kun, I see you brought your friends here with you today, what can I do for you today?" the Hokage asked as team 14 entered his office.

"Hello Ojii-san, I've come for a C ranked mission, and it had better be a good one," the blonde haired boy declared

"Oh a C rank, do you think you're up to it?"

"Of course I am, heck in a few months I will be up to taking your job old man,"

"Really? Well Hamaki-san do you think they are up to a C ranked mission?"

"Yes Hokage-sama, team 14 is ready."

"In that case let us see what we have available," with that the Hokage turned to his stack of missions and started to sort through them before finally pulling one out, "Here you go Hamaki-san I think this would be a good one."

"Thank you Hokage-sama" With that team 14 bowed and left the office, going downstairs before Hamaki opened the scroll.

"Alright team we are going on an escort mission. Some traders are taking a few wagons of goods from here towards Takano town, a trading town about a week's travel from here. We leave in two hours so go home and get everything you will need for ten day journey. With that he handed the scroll to Misu to pass around before Shunshining away.

'Alright what do I need' Naruto asked himself as he looked over his apartment and started to lay things out to pack, "clothes, food, Kunai, Shuriken, ninja wire, almost forgot the ninja wire..." After doing this for several minutes, and double checking everything Naruto packed it up and was finally ready, beating the rest of his team to the main gate by half an hour.

"Sorry I am late." Misu said as she joined the group, arriving last of the four of them, "my mother didn't seem to want to let me go."

The statement brought a small smile to Hamaki's face before he brought them to order, "Well now that we are all here, the caravan will be meeting us here in ten minutes, leave the talking to me until tonight, Misu I want you walking in front of the column, keep an eye out for any traps, Makoto you will be at the end of the column, keeping an eye to make sure no one pops up behind us, and Naruto you and I will be walking alongside the caravan but be about forty feet inside the tree line. Hopefully this way we will see the trouble before it arrives, don't worry we will swap positions every day so no one should get too bored, or get stuck doing one thing. Does everyone understand?"

Seeing nods of acceptance from all three Genin Hamaki let them relax until the caravan showed up.

For the next three days all three Genin did their best to keep an eye out for the enemy making sure no harm would come to the caravan, moving with it during the day and keeping watch over it in shifts at night until finally they arrived at the town of Takano, the market town for all the surrounding villages. "Congratulations team, a job well done," Hamaki told them as he took them into a hotel, "we will be staying here tonight and returning in the morning, and this place has a larger market district thank Konoha so go out and enjoy yourselves and see if the shops have anything Konoha doesn't, but stay together, you don't know the town, and this way if something happens at least you will all be together." As soon as he had said the word shop it was as if a light had come on in Misu's eyes, and as soon as their sensei dismissed them she grabbed her two teammates and dragged them out, only stopping to ask the receptionist where the shops were located. The next two hours weren't so bad for Naruto, following Misu from one shop to another as she looked at different clothes, she was open to going into a few stores that interested the boys, and Naruto was liking the fact that he didn't get stared at or shouted at in these stores. By supper time Misu had bought some new clothes and Naruto had managed to buy a few new outfits himself, for much cheaper than what he would have paid in Konoha. They asked around as well and dined at a pretty good barbecue restaurant, Naruto had also bought a bowl of Ramen from one of the local stands, but one had been enough, it just did not measure up to Ichiraku's. The next morning they returned home to Konoha, covering the same distance that took them a week in two. It would have taken them longer but Hamaki decided to turn the entire experience into an endurance test, having the group use their chakra to keep themselves going and really push the team to the limit. Makoto did not even make it all the way back to Konoha, collapsing right outside the city gates as soon as they finished the last jump from the trees.

"Congratulations team, good job getting back. Naruto you and Misu carry Makoto to the hospital, I will go and report our success to the Hokage and meet you there with your pay."

Less than an hour later Hamaki returned, handing each of his Genin their pay for completing a C rank mission, Makoto was alright just needing to get a good nights sleep drink some water and refrain from using any chakra for three days to recover "Alright team, good job, take the next two days off then I want to see you back at the training ground."

"Ok sensei, but the next mission better be worth it. This mission sucked, there wasn't a single bandit," Naruto commented as he picked up his money.

"Naruto one of these days you are going to appreciate the quiet missions."

"But how am I supposed to become as good as the Sannin or even become Hokage some day if I don't kick some serious ass, and fight some cool opponents."

"Trust me Naruto that will happen soon enough," his sensei replied with a smile briefly appearing over the boy's antics, "Now I'm proud of the three of you, you didn't lose focus, and you managed to make it all the way back, if we had news of an invasion and needed to get the information to the Hokage we would have succeeded, but we need to exceed this level of fitness, so I want you working long distance running into your private training… Alright now go and get some rest."

With that the team dispersed, Naruto to his apartment, and Misu off to tell her parents she had returned safely.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing happened" Naruto grumbled to himself as he walked into his apartment. The blonde haired boy had been muttering about this since the end of the escort mission. Collapsing on the couch he was preparing for a good sulk when suddenly his stomach rumbled, and he remembered the bright side of the whole thing, 'I just completed a C rank mission. That means I am going to receive C rank pay.' The realization caused him to jump into the air shouting "Ichiraku's".

"I'm telling you Teuchi-san it was terrible, not one bandit, one wild animal. The only time I got to do anything was in the evenings when I would go and hunt a few rabbits for supper" Naruto complained to the older man, causing him to shake his head and smile.

"Naruto did the caravan make it to it's destination?" the chef asked.

"Well sure, but…"

"And were any of the clients injured or killed?"

"No, but…"

"And were any of your teammates injured?"

"No" the boy said starting to wonder where this was going.

"Then congratulations Naruto your first mission was 100% successful, have a free bowl of ramen" he said sliding over a bowl of the pork ramen. "Listen Naruto," the man said, his face taking on a serious tone, "you're not always going to be so lucky. Some missions you go on will be traps, and you and your teammates will be lucky to get out alive. Others will be based on lies where the client wont want to or can't afford to pay for the right protection, and hopes to get lucky. Some missions will be based on just bad information where nobody knew what the threats really were, and lastly some missions may go wrong because either you or one of your teammates makes a mistake, we all do eventually, heck do you remember the spinach ramen I had such high hopes for?"

That last comment broke the somber tomb as Naruto remembered the week a few years ago when Teuchi had though he had found an amazing new ramen recipe. Several customers had never returned after the failed experiment.

"But seriously Naruto, a mission where everything goes well is a beautiful thing. Look at it, not as a boring mission but as a chance to see more of the world, and get paid to do it. Just remember to never let your guard down on a mission. That bit you can consider training in paying attention.

Teuchi stood there staring at the boy for a few seconds, making sure the message sank in before once again resuming his usual jovial mood, "Alright Naruto, enough of that for one day, eat your ramen before it gets cold."

The talk Teuchi had with the boy staid with him. Naruto, much more so than most people, knew how bad things could sometimes turn in an instant, it was something he was constantly on the look out for inside Konoha, and now realized how that would now need to apply to the outside world as well. Luckily his mood was lifted as he opened the door to his apartment, and saw the letter that was lying on his floor. Forgetting his need to shower or the laundry he needed to do after a week in the forest Naruto grabbed the letter, ripping it open as he dived onto the couch finding a comfortable reading position. 'Wow, that is amazing…learning weapons fighting from ghosts and paintings, that is just weird…He needs help with his jutsu I see. Well I have been meaning to send him a letter with the tree walking exercise, I guess I will have to give that some thought. I wonder if I can phrase it right and ask Iruka-sensei without giving away why…I also need to mention using the Occlumency to reduce the number of seals used. Maybe it will work with his stick thing too.'


	9. Chapter 9 A Fresh Experience

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them, or anything else in this story.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis.

Ch.9

Naruto dived over a kick, twisting in mid air to land on his back before jumping to his feet and going on the attack. For the next five minutes Naruto spared against Makoto, the two continued with the taijutsu battle for a few minutes before Makoto slipped up, kicking a little harder than he should have, and moving off balance, allowing the blonde to dodge inside it and knock him to the ground laying a a kunai against his throat.

"Well done boys" Hamaki said from where he was supervising.

With a grin Naruto stood up, putting away the knife and helping Makoto up.

"Alright team, good job you've all improved, but you all still need to work on your endurance and speed, you need to be faster," Hamaki then looked up at the sky, gauging the time by the hight of the sun before turning back to his team, "Ok I think we are done for the day, go home, and I'll see you tomorrow."

With this the three teammates disbursed, Makoto and Misu headed off to help their families and their respective businesses, Naruto to relax and study before getting back to his training.

'After drawing the chakra in you got to...Damn it where does it go after that?' Naruto asked himself as started to look through the library for books that might help him.

'What's got into that boy?' Zuki asked as she saw her proté gé shuffling through the scrolls like...well like a ninja on a mission.

"Naruto what are you looking for?" She finally asked when she couldn't take the disorder he was causing any more.

Her calling out seemed to have surprised the boy, causing him to jump up from the crouched position he was in before slowly turning around to see her, "I am looking for an explanation about chakra. I was trying to think through the jutsu process and I realized that I couldn't explain how the jutsus actually happen" Naruto replied quickly using the response he had made sure to prepare earlier.

"Well why didn't you just ask?" Zuki demanded with an exasperated look.

"I didn't think it would be this hard to find."

"Really? Well anyway the best explanation is over here" she said heading down the rows of scrolls before going down one in the ninja taijutsu section, "here," she said holding out the scroll.

"A Taijutsu scroll, how will this help?"

"The Gentle Fist taijutsu. The style of the Hyuga clan. Trust me Naruto, just read the scroll, it'll have what you want."

"Thanks Zuki-san," 'although I don't see how a Taijutsu style will help'.

"No Problem Naruto," The older ninja turned librarian said as she started to walk back to her office, ... "And Naruto,"

"Yes?"

"You are going to clean up that mess you left over there aren't you?" She asked giving him a pointed look causing the boy to blush and scratch the back of his head in embarassement remembering the mess he had made.

"Of course Zuki-san, it will be the first thing I do.

A few hours later Naruto had finally discovered what was so important about this scroll. The Gentle Fist style worked by attacking the chakra network itself, something that only the Hyuga could see making it an uncopyable style and highly effective, and along with attacking the network they were also apparently able to shut off the points where chakra left the body, these Tenketsu points that all Ninja instinctively pushed their chakra out of in order to perform Jutsu. As Naruto mulled over the information a sudden change happened, it was like a wave passed over him and suddenly his brain was flooded with understanding causing a smile to leap to his face, 'this is why at the academy we only learn the Bunshin, Kawarimi, and Henge, they are a few of the only ninjutsu techniques that only require us to push the chakra out through our Tenketsu points, instead of using chakra in specific forms pushed through specific points like that stupid tree walking exercise, and that is why Zuki san had me practicing working with my chakra doing different things from different points of my body.' Suddenly those hours spent learning only those three jutsus made so much more sense. 'Damn I've got to send this info to Hen-ry!'

With that Naruto grabed a fresh scroll and started to write his next letter to his friend.

* * *

"Now Master Barnes you know that this section is wrong here don't you." Professor Chivers said looking over his glasses at the second year as as he reviewed the potions essay, "Now go back and read the chapter again, and fix your mistakes."

The review sessions had been going for a little over a month now and so far the Hufflepuffs, a group famous of never being afraid of doing a little extra work, were really taking advantage of it. Which was why Daniel Barnes wasn't the only one in the study room as he grabbed his parchment from the lectern they had set up so the portraits could review peoples' work. It did pay off though, the children were getting better grades, even if the teachers hadn't realized it yet. Something that was highlighted at a staff meeting that very night.

"So Severus how do our prospects look for this year's N.E.W.T.s?" the headmaster asked with his trademark twinkle in his eye.

"bah," the sharp faced potions teacher replied with a look of disgust, "not a single decent potioner amongst the lot of them. They should pass I expect but not thanks to anything they have done."

"It must be a dying art Severus" Professor Sprout commented kindly, "We get very few herbologists at that level as well, but luckily I can almost give them the run of the whole greenhouse."

"Well one requires skill and patience and the other just needs someone to burrow into the earth like a mole," her colleague replied snidely.

"Maybe Severus but both require a teacher who is willing to spend the time to foster an interest in the discipline, rather than turning on the children, and making them hate the idea of even considering the field" Pomona replied once again questioning why she even tried to put up with the horridly greasy man, let alone be nice to him.

"So how are the new first years coming along" Dumbledore asked trying to change the direction of the conversation. 'It seems I must have another talk with Severus' the old man thought while his faculty organized their own thoughts to give their reports.

"On the whole they aren't a bad lot on the whole, except for maybe one or two." Sinistra replied as she thought about how they behaved with her late at night while they studied the skies. It was often a trying time as the children were tired and therefore cranky, mix that with a lack of understanding of the importance of Astronomy and it sometimes became an effort to maintain control.

"Yes Malfoy and Weasley I bet," Flitwick suggested from his chair with his hands curled around a large mug of hot cider, the proportions making an almost comical image due to his small frame.

"Yes those two definitely."

"What are you talking about" two voices cried out.

For a second everyone stopped...

'Did Minerva and Severus just agree about something?' Everyone thought as they looked around the room gauging peoples reactions.

Finally the charms professor broke the silence, "Listen I know you are both protective of your wards, but young Weasley is under the impression that because of the achievements of his brothers, and the current notoriety of the twins that he knows everything, so he refuses to pay attention, his work is abysmal, and he doesn't seem to care. Master Malfoy on the other hand believes that simply due to his family name and his position he should be top of the class. That boy spent ten minutes arguing with me yesterday about why having to do any work at all was a stain on his family name and beneath his station. Lucius at least was willing to put the effort in to make sure everyone had a reason to respect his name, or at least fear it."

"What about on the other side of the spectrum?" queried Dumbledore trying to head off the potential argument, instead sending them all twittering about one student in particular

"Well top of the year is obviously Miss Granger".

"Yes very attentive."

"Always r…r…ready with the answer."

"And eager to help too."

"She does put a lot of care into her work, you can see that."

"Irma says that she is always the last person to leave the library when she closes up for the night."

"And she's always the first one to master a spell, even faster than some of those who were trained before showing up."

Until they were suddenly quieted by another loud bark by the potions master.

"Bah!... She's a loudmouth know-it-all, that's fine for right now but it's going to get her into trouble eventually. All I see is memorization no real inspiration."

"Well at least she is making an effort to learn something unlike your first years apparently." McGonagall attacked, upset again that anyone would cubs.

"How about Mr. Potter?" Dumbldore asked quickly once again trying to stop another fight before it had the chance to build up steam.

"He's alright, his homework is always quite good."

"What about in the classroom?"

"Oh about average, wouldn't you say?"

"That's right, he is doing as well as the rest of the children."

"So nothing special, no hidden talents that anyone has noticed?"

"Not really he has a good grasp of the spells, and never seems to need any special attention. A pretty average student I would say."

"E..e..except for his home… his homework."

"Yes like Minerva said that's always very good."

"Eh the boy is just biding his time. If he is anything like his father we will see him start to go on the strut soon enough."

While all this was going on the boy in question was sitting in the library with Neville. He had been there for about two hours now, the first hour had been spent reading more about wizarding culture and wizarding history. Muggle borns or at least Muggle raised people like him were already handicapped by not growing up in the society, if he was going to have any chance of doing well in his History of Magic exams he needed to study independently of Professor Binns. The second hour was spent helping Neville as he had asked. It appeared the boy was having a hard time with most of his classes, with the exception of Herbology, for which he seemed to have a natural talent, and History of Magic.

"Alright Neville, so Cassiopeia is where on this map?" the boy asked going over last weeks astronomy lesson, as he looked at a very nervous looking Neville racking his brain for the right answer.

"This W near Ursa Minor?"

"Got it in one, Neville, You see, you know this stuff. You just need to be more confident and then it will start to work out."

"Thanks Harry"

"Let me tell you a little secret Neville. This something that I know to be true. You've already proven yourself to be brave enough to go out and do what you want, despite the concequences. You proved that with the troll, and just by asking for help. Now you just need to believe in yourself that it will all be ok and not end terribly."

At this comment the other boy started to blush, unused to the compliments.

"Now, on to transfiguration…" and with that the two boys went back to studying.

Half an hour later the tutoring session was brought to an end. Neville had returned to the Gryffindor rooms and Harry was browsing for some bedtime reading when he accidentally bumped into the only grown up he was starting to trust.

"Hello Hagrid, what brings you to the library?"

"Oh, just a little research 'arry."

"On what?"

"You know, This and that" the giant of a man replied as he stood looking slightly awkward.

The odd response from one of the most open people Harry had met surprised the boy, until he reminded himself how much he liked his own privacy, "fair enough, I hope you found what you were looking for."

"Pretty much, a lot of good books 'ere. One of best collections in Britain, you can find most of what you need."

The issue was put off until next Saturday, when after finishing his morning workout Harry walked over to the Groundskeeper's cottage as he had for the last few weeks, only to find the door locked.

_Tap tap tap_

Harry then stood waiting for a response. 'This is odd, Hagrid never locks his door, even when he isn't here'

_Knock knock knock_

Again the boy waited, becoming slightly worried that something may have happened to his friend.

_Bang Bang Bang_

Finaly Hagrid stuck his face out the window.

"Young 'Arry, what are you doing 'ere?" The man said as streams of sweat seemed to pour down his face.

"Just came to say hello Hagrid. Is everything alright. You look a little hot. Do you need me to get Madame Pomphrey?"

"What, no need to bother 'er 'arry," the greenskeeper said suddenly looking a little panicky, " 'm fine, honest, 'ere why don't you come in for a minute."

The next thing Harry knew the door was flung open and a wave of heat washed over him.

"Hagrid what are you doing in here?" the boy asked as he stepped in to see a large fire roaring in the hearth.

"Got a new pet" the bearded man replied pointing to an object in the fire.

Harry slowly approached it, giving his body time to get used to the heat, as the object started to be defined.

"Hagrid, that's a large egg. What kind of egg is it?"

"Tha' there's a Dragon's Egg" he replied proudly, "You got ta keep 'em hot see."

"Wow, where did you get it? I haven't heard of anyone keeping a dragon before."

"Won it off a man down the pub, and you won't find many," Hagrid said bending down to whisper in Harry's ear, "Stupid government went and made 'em illegal see."

"...Cool…and the guy just bet it in a poker game?"

"Well he made sure I'd be able to take care of it first, but after telling him 'bout fluffy 'e knew I could 'andle it."

"So do you know what type?"

"No wont know that 'til it 'atches."

They continued to talk about dragons for the rest of the visit, both excited about the new arrival before Harry had to head in to get changed.

A few days later Naruto's letter finally arrived, Hedwig dropping the scroll off on his bed while he was dressing after his morning run. That night after supper Harry went to the library looking for a private alcove with no pictures hanging on the wall before unlocking the scroll and beginning to read.

Thirty minutes later Harry finished the letter. 'So magic leaves the body through our pores?...or we have extra pores specifically for magic?... So I just need to push it out from all over, and just trust it to do it's thing…Well it looks like I have another project to add to the list then.

* * *

"Woohoo another escort mission," Naruto said half heartedly as they walked out of ninja headquarters, earning himself a smack in the back of the head by sensei.

"Yes Naruto another escort mission. However if you want I am sure they still have some D rank missions available," Hamaki said as he made to turn around and head in, causing Naruto to jump on his back trying to knock him to the ground.

"Nah Nah sensei, these missions are great, don't bother, didn't you hear me I love escort missions."

"Heh, that's what I thought Naruto, now people, the caravan is set to head out at 9 tomorrow morning so be there an hour early. You know the drill.

'We should by now, this is our sixth one' the blonde boy thought as he viciously kicked an enemy pebble in the road.

The next morning Naruto was at the meeting point on time, going through the drill of meeting all the traders in the caravan, and getting ready to head out. Today he was on rear guard duty, his job was to be in the woods about a quarter of a mile behind the caravan looking for anybody who was following them or bandit sentries.

It was the second day into the trip that it happened. Naruto was in charge of East side of the caravan, walking back up and down the caravan looking for possible signs of an ambush when he heard the sound of branch being stood on behind him. Turning around to examine the noise he saw a dirty scraggly bearded man charging at him with a dagger held above his head. Naruto dived to the side to dodge the incoming blow, "Attack" he shouted, hoping to warn his friends, while jumping to his feet and engaging the idiot. Pulling out two of his own kunai Naruto ran at the man blocking another overhead knife strike with one of the blades, and just like he had practiced a hundred times with his team, stabbing forward with the second. As the man fell to ground, his heart destroyed by the boys blade, Naruto heard the tell tale sounds of metal on metal, exactly like the ones he had just caused coming from the other side of the caravan.

Looking around the boy quickly grabbed one of the traders, "you, if you see anyone else coming out of these woods shout for me." With that Naruto leaped over the cart to join his teammates, landing in what appeared to be a full scale battle. The ninjas were outnumbered by more than Naruto was going to take time to count. He quickly ran over to Makoto who was about to be attacked by three guys, all of whom luckily had their back turned to him. Naruto kicked the back of the knee of the man in front of him as hard as he could, already going through the trained motions, as the man lost his balance and started to fall to the ground the boy reached around lifting his head up, bringing his other hand around still holding a kunai to stab into the side of the man's throat. Turning around he saw that the other two bandits had finally noticed him. Unfortunately them both turning around was a mistake. With both of them distracted Makoto used the distraction to launch an attack of his own driving his own blade into the back of his closest opponent. The tables had now turned as the two genin moved to deal with the remaining bandit, only to see him turn and run for the trees. Unfortunately he wasn't quick enough.

Hamaki knew it was a bloody business, and did not look forward to tonight, trying to help his team deal with what they had just done, but right now he had bigger fish to fry. Leaving his Genin to deal with the bandits in the open the old jonin hung back to evaluate his teams performance, seeing the man running away he quickly launched a Kunai of his own and taking out the bandit in the back of the neck.

Quickly the two teammates rushed back into the fight, their adrenaline momentarily blocking out what they had just done, as they met up with Misu.

Fairly quickly the three genin made their way through the remaining bandits, taking them out fairly quickly thanks to the hours Hamaki had spent drilling them.

as the battle ended and before anyone had a chance to take stock of the situation Makoto quickly ordered his genin out into the forest to search for any more bandits, and to scout ahead for the closest spot where the caravan could rest, and traders who had been injured could be cared for, while the rest of the traders calmed the animals who had become extremely agitated by fracas and the smell of blood. As the caravan moved on a mile down the road to a clearing the genin had found Hamaki went through the corpses, checking to see if any of them were wanted criminals, taking any possessions they had that might be of value, including the weapons, and sealing them all in a spare scroll before heading off to catch up with the rest of the caravan.

Hamaki called his students to him as soon as he arrived at the clearing, "you kids did good today, you looked after each other and you looked after the clients," he started off as he looked at the kids in front of him, "I'm proud of all of you."

"Now we did well today, but this caravan isn't home safe yet, and the mission isn't over until we make it back to Konoha, so just because we have had one run is no reason to drop your guard, in fact if any of them got away they might have gone off to get some help so now we have to be doubly cautious. Also I know they don't cover this in the academy, but in a bit, as you calm down, you might find yourself shaking uncontrollably, don't worry about it, its natural." After giving them a few seconds to gather themselves, the old jonin led them back to camp, "Let's go about setting traps, after that you three get some hot food down you, and hit the dirt, I will stand guard tonight, you've earned your rest."

Mako was the first one to start shaking. It got so bad that he had to sit down and let Naruto and Misu finish up with the defenses. A few minutes later Misu started as well.

"W..w..what the heck is wr..wr..wrong with us?" Makoto said as he watched his body constantly twitching.

"I can't seem to s.s..stop moving" Misu joined in from her spot.

"Don't worry, remember Sensei said this might happen" Naruto said from where he was kneeling down setting up a tripwire.

"So w..w..why aren't you shaking?"

"I used to, there were a bunch of times as a kid when after I had been chased through the streets where people had been trying to hurt me that after I found a safe spot I found myself shaking for ages. But then I found myself shaking less and less and now I don't anymore. I guess I'm just used to it."

"D.d..do you th..think Sens...Sensei thinks we d.d..did OK?"

"I think you did fine."

"Sensei, when did you get here?" Naruto asked as he paused his work.

"Oh I've been looking out for you since you moved out to set up the traps," their teacher said as he squatted down beside his team.

"So is Na..Naruto right Sensei, will this all ways happen after a f..f.?"

"Maybe. For some people it happens every time, for others they get to control it. The medic-nins say its because of a chemical your body releases when you get into a serious fight. You might have noticed yourself moving a bit faster, having a quicker reaction time today out there. It's because of this chemical, this is just the side effect."

"So then S..s..sensei, how did we do?" Misu asked from her spot on the ground.

"You fought well today. I'm proud of all of you. None of you got distracted and you did what needed to be done."

"Sensei, I've got a question," Naruto asked, "you know those people who attacked us, what happens to their bodies now?"

A snort of laughter escaped Hamaki's mouth, "good question... what do you think happens?"

"I don't know, I know I don't see many corpses on the road."

"True. That's actually for a number of reasons. Number one people are more wary when you see corpses, so in order to keep people's guard down the thieves and robbers make sure to dispose of the bodies if they kill someone when they take a caravan... Then we have us. We are ninja. When you get good enough you should be able to sneak into any room in the world, take out the target, and get out, without anyone knowing you were even there. Its bad advertising to leave the bodies out and about." Here he paused for a minute, staring at his students before proceeding, "and lastly, its bad practice to leave the bodies out. Every bandit you run into could be a missing nin, or could be a foreign spy. After every fight like this we need to go through the corpses taking detailed notes about what and who we ran into, this way we might find out if there are more in the area, or if they have any other information on them, or if their is a price on their head that we can collect. The Hokage might be able to use that info as he plans the risks of different missions, and by so doing keep the village safe. So if we are going to go to all that work anyway with the body, the least we can do is bury it. That, and that way if we missed anything that information can't be recuperated by our enemies."

For a few second there was silence among the group until finally Misu asked the question that was on all three genin's minds, "S..so that mean we have to go back t. Hamaki-sensei?"

"No, not this time, I already took care of it. You might in the future, but for now you don't," their sensei replied, before leaving them to finish setting up traps and recover from the adrenaline.

It was two more days before the caravan reached its destination. "Wow, Nikona is a pretty big town" Makoto said as they looked around the main shopping district.

"Yes it is, alright kids, you know the drill, we head out tomorrow, but the rest of the day is yours, but before you go I want you to follow me to our rooms."

In Hamaki's room he took out a scroll and unsealed it showing all the things he had taken from the bandits, money, jewelry and weapons.

"You three did the lion's share of the work this trip, so you three get to share this."

"What is this Sensei?" Makoto asked.

"These are the belongings of our enemies."

A shocked look came across the three genin as they looked from the pile of weapons, money and jewelry to their sensei and back again.

"You looted their corpses?" Misu asked stunned that someone, let alone a Konoha ninja would do such a thing.

"Of course I did," Hamaki replied mater of factly, "don't you remember me telling you that after every fight we've got to search the bodies for anything that could be useful information. That means we take detailed notes about scars, clothing styles, and we go through their pockets."

"Yeah," they all replied together.

"This is part of that everything."

"So what are you doing with it?" Misu asked.

"Some people don't like to do this, especially those ninja from clans, but there is some useful stuff here, and the money is the same as you genin have in your wallets."

"So you just keep the stuff you find on the dead bodies?"

"Mostly I sell it and turn it into money, I'm not one for jewelry, and I like better equipment than the stuff most bandits carry, but yes."

"Cool" Naruto said as he made his way to look over the pile.

"What do you mean Cool Naruto, the people who owned this stuff are dead" Misu declared.

"Probably" Hamaki said, "although I doubt much of this was stuff that was ever really owned by the bandits."

"Still, I don't want anything to do with this!" and with that she stormed out of the room in a huff.

Makoto went over and started to look through the pieces, until he saw a coin, stained red from the blood. Holding the piece up the boy stared at it for a minute, until he put it down, and followed Misu out the room.

"Now what?" Naruto said turning to his teachers.

"Now you have to decide if you want it."

"Of course I want it. Those tanto knives over there may not be as the quality your used to, but they're better than I can afford."

"Naruto, you always make me laugh" the man replied with a smile as he walked out of the room.

Two days later they arrived back in Konoha, once again tired from the grueling pace that Hamaki had set but not quite as badly winded as the first time.

"It is good to be home" Makoto said as they jogged through the gates of the town.

"Yes it is, alright you three why don't you take the rest of the day off. I will go and report in, and I will see you tomorrow in the training field.

* * *

'Gather the magic, mould it, now "Henge no Jutsu" and force out the chakra'. Harry looked in the mirror, hoping this time that he was going to see something different, and for a second he did, standing before him was a pretty good likeness of Fred or George Weasley. The henge only lasted for a few seconds though before his own visage returned. 'Success. Now I just need to be able to keep pumping chakra into the henge to keep it formed. After two hours Harry had finally thought he had it down. 'At last, one down two to go' the boy thought as he wiped his face with a towel. He was actually lucky to be that far ahead, all the chakra control exercises he had been doing before had helped to counter act the fact that he had no teacher to give him pointers. 'Crap' Harry thought as he looked at his watch, 'I'm gonna be late for supper again. I really need to get a watch with an alarm," with that Harry headed for the exit, not wanting to miss any more of the meal.

"Ah Roast Beef" Harry said as he sat down next to Leanne, and helped himself from the tray in front of him.

"So good of you to join us Harry. We thought you were going to miss it again." his friend said turning to him.

"Oh you know how it goes, sometimes time just seems to be running away from you" the young boy replied trying to be nonchalant as he added some roast potatoes to his plate.

"Yes, so much to do so little time to do it in" the girl answered back. She didn't know why Harry was often not around, but also respected her friends privacy.

Unfortunately not everyone did. Among the many people who at least tried to keep track of the Boy-Who-Lived one was a young Gryffindor girl. Ever since she had met him she had considered him an oddity. 'He is nothing like the books say he is' she thought to herself as she pushed the food around on her plate. Between that, saving her life from the troll, and the way he blew off the whole Cerberus incident, it was safe to say her curiosity was aroused. Add to that the fact that Neville had asked both of them for help studying, not just her, or even another Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw, but a boy who, from what she had seen in class, had yet to impress her. All this combined with her own deep curiosity led her to keeping tabs on him.

"Exactly, can you pass the gravy"

"So what are you doing this evening then?" she asked as she passed the jug.

"Thanks, I dunno, I don't really have any plans at the moment. Why? Want to play some chess or something?"

It was at this moment that Hedwig flew into the great hall, circled the room once then dived down, dropping a letter on the boy's plate before swooping up and coming to rest on his shoulder.

"Sorry" Harry said to Leanne as he saved the letter from his food before feeding Hedwig some of his roast beef.

The girl in turn took the opportunity to admire the beautiful bird, She really was a magnificent creature, even if she was picky about her company (the first few days of school some of the girls had tried to pet the owl as she rode on Harry's shoulder, only to be beaten back by the owls wings and talons. Hedwig had made it very clear, she was Harry's friend and no one else's, and woe be unto he or she who thought otherwise).

The letter only had two words written on it, _It's Hatching_, but those words were enough. With an apology to both girls (Hedwig and Leanne) the boy pushed away from the table and started to jog for the door, leaving a bewildered Leanne sitting there staring at the strange boy who always seemed to need to be somewhere else, before turning back to her food, and another conversation.

Across the hall the chestnut haired girl saw her target leave his table just minutes after sitting down, and once again her curiosity got the better of her. Leaving her own half finished meal she got up, following the boy out of the room.

Harry left the Great Hall, ran through the Main Hall, and in seconds was out in the grounds, headed directly for the groundskeepers shack, and not stopping until he reached the door, using it as a brake, and as a way to announce his arrival, before walking into Hagrids house.

Stepping into the room he could immediately feel the difference. For the first time in the last month there was no fire burning in the fireplace, both Hagrid and Fang were perfectly still staring at the egg in the hearth. A crack was forming along the top of it and every second or so a high pitched grunt could be heard followed by a small cracking sound as the egg gave way a little more.

All three were mesmerized watching the egg slowly brake open until, it happened, the piece of the shell fully gave way and a dark purple snout appeared, followed by the rest of the head.

"Wow" the two guys said as the creature fully emerged.

"'arry you see that line o' spines down 'is back. 'e's a Norwegian Ridgeback."

"He's a beauty Hagrid. What are you going t'call him?"

There was silent for a few more seconds as the watched the dragon take in the surroundings.

"Norbert. 'e looks like a Norbert don't 'e" the big man said slowly moving closer to his new pet, "'ello Norby," He said sticking out a finger and trying to stroke the dragon under its chin.

Norbert seeing the large sausage like finger approaching him lunged for the potential food, almost severing the digit in question.

"Why you little scamp. Look at 'im 'arry. Isn't 'e cute."

A look that Harry could only describe as curious came across Norbert's face for a few seconds, almost like he was reacting to Hagrid's statement, until all of a sudden he let out a hiccup, followed by a small burst of flame.

"Oh My God Is That A Dragon?" a voice from the front of the shack sounded piercing through the air. Turning around Harry was shocked to see Granger standing in the doorway staring at them in disbelief while Hagrid dived in front of his new family member blocking her view.

"A dragon, Granger are you alright? It sounds like you're seeing things" Harry said trying to think of a way out of this mess.

"You both realize that keeping a dragon is illegal right?"

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"Harry don't be an idiot. I've obviously seen it."

Embarrassed Hagrid slowly stepped to the side and turned back to admire his new pet.

"So what were you planning on doing with it?"

"'im! And 'e's my pet." Hagrid answered forcefully.

"You can't do that Hagrid!"

"Why Not?"

"Firstly it's illegal,…And secondly, you live in a Wooden House," she said looking around in exasperation.

"It's not that bad, and anyway, where else's Norby gonna go?"

"I don't know, but Hagrid He can't stay here!"

A depressed look settled over the big man as he turned to stare wistfully at the new creature.

"But I've got no where to send him, and I can't just let him out all on 'is own! Look 'ow small 'e is."

"Hagrid I know someone who might be able to help," Harry commented thinking of the Weasley twins. He also didn't like the idea of getting rid of Norbert, but if Hermione had found out it wouldn't be long until everyone else did either, so if Hagrid needed a way out he would help him.

"You do 'arry?"

"And just what is your way out" Hermione asked in a tone that left little of her feelings on the situation to the imagination.

"Yup just give me a couple of days to talk to some people Hagrid, and if you want I might be able to get Norbert to a good place."

"Wher would you send him?"

"That is private Miss Granger, and none of your business?"

The denial of information sent the girl into a huff, as she crossed her arms and both guys could see her face becoming redder and redder, at which point Harry decided to ignore the situation and went back to examining the dragon.

The next morning at breakfast Harry bumped into the Weasley twins, slipping a note into one of their pockets, _Guys I need some help on something, meet me in the secret room behind the picture of Alfred the Seer on the 2__nd__ floor tonight at 9._ All that was left to do now was go about his regular day and wait for this evening, … that and hope they read the note.

"So Harry..."

"What do you want with us" the twins asked as they walked into the secret room.

"What? How did you know I was already here?" The younger boy asked, slightly annoyed, as he took off his cloak.

"Trade secrets old bean."

"We can't go sharing them with everyone."

"Sorry" they finished together with a smile.

"Oh well, at least you came. I've got to say I was worried that you wouldn't read the note."

"Harry, you're a great kid…"

"…With I'm sure lots of different skills…"

"but pick-pocketing isn't one of them."

"So what do you need?"

"You remember telling me about your brother?"

"Which one?" they both answered together.

"The one that handles dragons."

"Oh, Charley. Yeah, what about him?" George asked.

"I need to know how he would feel about getting an extra dragon to look after."

"Hah" they both replied again as a new grin spread across their faces.

"Harry do you have a dragon?"

"That's my business" the boy replied, his own grin getting larger, "but let's just say I knew of one, would he want it?"

"Sure I guess he's always going looking for more dragons."

"Remember last year when he came to visit?"

"Yeah, talking about how the dragons seemed to be getting rarer."

"He put it down to the decreasing natural habitat."

"That's great, next question, do you know any way to get a baby dragon to him?"

"So you do have a dragon" The twins once again said in concert the smile still on their faces.

"We can smuggle the dragon off the grounds easy enough,"

"But getting it to Romania is outside of our considerable abilities."

"Charley might be able to help though."

"Give us some time to contact him he may have an idea."

"So I can leave it in your hands."

"Of course you can Harry, don't worry about a thing," they said as they each threw an arm around his shoulders, the smiles on their faces exuding confidence that would make most people that everything would be all right.


	10. Chapter 10 Special Delivery

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis. "_words_" = magical language (e.g. Parseltongue or Gobbledygook)

Ch. 10. Special Delivery.

Harry, you've done pretty well. It's good to see someone in your generation who isn't slacking off for once."

"Thank you Sir Nicholas"

"Thanks nothing. You've done all the work and without you we would be dying of boredom."

"Which is why we think it is time to diversify your training," Sir Cadogan added from his frame.

"What are you talking about?"

"Were talking about knife-work my boy."

"There are times you wont be able to have a sword on you, or when you are going to need to get up close with your enemy, and knowing how to use the short blades is necessary."

"That and soon we are going to include a main gauche into your rapier work, and for that you need to know how to use the knife."

"A main gauche?"

"My God don't they teach children anything these days?"

"Now now Sir Cadogan, it's not like in our days. Educated people no longer learn Latin, where most of the incantations for their spells come from, or study alchemy,"

"Or how to fight, or half the subjects that used to be taught in this school!" The night replied angrily from his painting.

"Exactly the school is much more progressive now, and I am sure the divination class being open to all instead of just those with the gift, and teaching them only about the different goblin rebellions in history are important changes," Sir Nicholas told the painting before turning back to Harry, who was starting to feel a little insulted, "A main gauche is French for left hand. It is the shorter blade you hold in that hand to help parry the enemies blade, mainly a defensive tool, but if you get the chance it works well on offence. Like that one over there," the ghost said pointing to a dagger on the wall with a seemingly ornate hilt.

"Used to be in my day no sane man travelled without at least two knives."

"Yes but nowadays people aren't meant to defend themselves. You've read the Daily Prophet when someone is nice enough to leave a copy open. Unless you've got the money and the political clout, you're meant to allow yourself to be the victim and then after you've been robbed and beaten, call the aurors so they can write up a report."

"Oh yes, heaven forbid you hurt some of that scum. Remember watching the trials during the war?"

"Oh God!" said Sir Nicholas switching to a whiny voice, "It wasn't my fault, I was imperiused, I wasn't responsible for my actions, and then that meany hurt me while my body was trying to kill him. Now I've got a broken leg. Arrest him, sue him."

"That Malfoy, remember him suing the Longbottoms. I still don't understand how Dumbledore let his son into the school."

"Well hopefully he won't turn out like his father, although little chance of that if the Baron is right, he's a right little shit."

"You want to watch out for that one young master. At least we knew how to deal with his kind in my day. We would have taken someone like that, send him out on patrol to be captured by the enemy, and refuse to pay the ransom, let the other bastards deal with him, until they put him out of their misery."

"That sounds like a lot of effort, why when I was alive, Good Queen Bess would take someone like that, and SHWICK, off with his head" the ghost countered making a chopping motion.

"You mean seen Elizabeth the First?" Harry asked jumping into the conversation, "Are you saying that she also ran the wizarding world?"

"Of course she did," the ghost replied with a chortle, "who was going to stop her? You didn't cross her my boy, not if you knew what was good for you! That woman…they don't make 'em like they used to my boy," he finished looking off into the distance whistfully.

"So when did the Ministry of Magic start taking things over?"

"George III. You know, the one some ghastly people call the mad king George. When the muggle Prime Minister started to take over running the regular government the Minister for Magic jumped on the bandwagon, and started doing the same thing."

"So why don't I ever read about that in any of the history books?"

"Because books Master Potter, are mostly written by two types of people, those who are trying to explain history, and normally apply their own feelings about the situation, and those people who think that they are so important that everyone is going to care about what they have to say. People saw the Minister of Magic being the one who issued the proclamation and decrees, so after a while they forgot he wasn't the one making them. Especially when the type of person who runs for the office of Minister is the type who is also going to try and push the idea that they are the all powerful one. That is where people like me used to come in." The knight said as he once again seemed to stare of into the distance, "I was muggleborn you know, but from a Noble family, so while I was at Hogwarts I was recruited, and afterwards went to work as one of the royal magicians to the Queen.

"But she already had the Minister?"

"Remember what I told you about ministers boy, self aggrandising and self serving twits for the most part! So we were her magical bodyguard, made sure no one imperioused or obliviated her and kept tabs on what was going on in the magical world for her so she wasn't getting spoon-fed the ministry rubbish. We were all from a good family, so us hanging around court wasn't too crazy, and we could slip in unnoticed."

"And that all ended with George III?"

"I think so, after a few hundred years as a ghost I was sort of out of the loop. I can only guess that either the potions they tried to give him didn't help, or they were worried about compromising the statute of secrecy, something we swore not to do…which is why we worked so hard with the sword, Now grab those two knives over there and come back to the starting line, enough reminiscing, time to get some work done."

With that it was back to work as Harry's teachers pushed him through new exercises and moves to use the new tools.

It was two days later that the Weasley twins finally managed to corner Harry again, a few minutes after leaving the salle, "So we talked to Charlie…"

"Our letter apparently almost caused the entire preserve to faint."

"They'll have a team in Diagon Alley next week, sort of a fundraising run, tell people of the good work they are doing, and try to squeeze some donations to keep the place running"

"Charlie got himself on the team, they are going to swing up here afterward on their way home."

"The plan is to fly over the astronomy tower on their brooms, pick up the dragon and fly back to Romania"

"Can you get it ready by then?" the two asked without a hint of a laugh on their face, both realizing that if their brother was caught between here and the dragon preserve with the hatchling he would be going to prison.

"The package will be ready" Harry replied just as seriously before moving the topic onto the Weasly's last prank, and the current chances of the different Quidditch teams. He was going to be glad when this whole thing was over. Ever since Norbert Hatched Granger had been constantly hounding him, demanding to know what was being done, and haranguing the boy for allowing Hagrid to keep the dragon for so long.

Naruto sat in his apartment, trying to start another letter to Hen-ry and wrestling with an issue. He was now part of a select group of people,… killers, he didn't think it had changed him, he still felt the same, thanks to his senseis he had been ready for it when the time came, but a walk down any street would tell you that the civilians didn't understand, even those living in a ninja village… If they didn't, would Hen-ry? Add to that it was time to tell his best friend about the kyubi. Naruto trusted Hen-ry, the same Hen-ry who had told him everything about himself. Even about the magic. It was time Naruto came forward about this.

At least since he had become a ninja he had noticed a broader acceptance by the other ninja, most of them still saw him as a demon, but he was now one of them as well, and no one wants to make an enemy of someone who might be responsible for saving your life one day. The rest of the villagers however saw him as having taken another step towards his eventual turn into a complete monster, they just had less they could do about it.

'He is my best friend, we have always tried to tell each other everything…'

'but what if doesn't want to be my friend anymore?...'

'your best friend, he knows what you signed up for, he's been expecting it…'

'but he is from such a different culture…'

'yeah but I've told him about ninja, he always seemed to understand, he'll understand this time.'

Back and forth, and back again, Naruto sat there trying to decide what the right thing to do was. He tried distracting himself, by reading a scroll, and when that didn't work he tried exercise. But even while he was running he knew he was just avoiding the issue, and eventually he was back on his couch arguing the point, until finally, three days after he had first really thought about writing the letter he got mad and shouted at his reflection in the mirror, "Alright you coward, lets get this done. You know what has to happen," and with that he grabbed the pen in such a vice like grip that it started to crack and using so much pressure that he punched a hole through the first sheet of paper and had to start again, began to write the letter to his friend.

When the letter was done and Naruto finally had everything down on paper, without daring to re-read it he slapped it into one of the envelopes the Hokage had given him, wrote out Harry's weird address and headed to the tower to have it mailed before he could think of changing his mind.

Walking out of the Hokage tower Naruto felt like a weight had been lifted off him, 'for better or worse it's done now and there's nothing I can do about it!' In fact he felt in such high spirits that he headed directly to Ichiraku's to celebrate with his favorite meal.

"You see I told you we would find him here!" Naruto heard Makoto from behind him as he worked his way through his third bowl

"And we didn't disagree with you, saying Naruto's going to be at the ramen stand is like saying that the next mission is going to be a C rank." Misu replied "Naruto, apparently we are needed for a mission. We are to report to the tower right away."

"What? I was just there," the boy said quickly wiping his mouth off on his sleeve, and throwing some money on the table.

"Well you should have stayed then" Misu jokingly chided as they started to jog to the tower.

Hamaki met them at the entrance to the mission office, already holding the scroll. "Took you long enough, what did you do, take the scenic route?"

"Sorry sensei it took them a few minutes to find me," Naruto replied, "so what we got this time?"

"Another caravan guarding. Apparently we did such a good job on that one a few weeks ago that word got around and we were asked for by name."

"Hah, I knew we were awesome!" Naruto shouted jumping into the air, just as they were stepping out of the tower…

Unfortunately he jumped right in the doorway, and instead of the nice high ceiling, or the open air, his head smashed right into the lintel.

…"CRAP" was the lightest of the words that past the boy's lips as he rubbed his head, trying to get over the pain. Luckily he had a very high threshold for that kind of thing, so he did not have the embarrassment of crying in front of his teammates, but that didn't stop them from laughing at his misfortune.

This continued for at least another thirty second, although to Naruto it felt like an eternity until Hamaki-sensei managed to get his own laugh under control and reign in his two students, and order everyone to meet him at the front gate early the next morning.

The mission was a complete success, boringly so, another team had actually run into a bandit group on the road only two weeks earlier, so no one had been stupid enough yet to set up camp ther again, which meant that two weeks later Naruto found himself back in Konoha, trying to catch up on the training he missed out on while he basically went on a long hike. He was currently working on his fast twitch response, to make his taijutsu sharper. That and it kept his mind off the letter that Hen-ry should be getting any day now.

Harry would be receiving some post soon, but right now his mind was full of other things. He had just spent the last half hour watching Hagrid tearfully saying goodbye to the dragon he'd always wanted, and was now taking it to the astronomy tower to meet its ride. He had tried talking to the dragon like Naruto had said he could, but unfortunately the dragon was a baby, and apparently, like all few month old babies was at the dragon version of the googoo gaga stage. Instead he had given it a rabbit and hoped that chewing on that would keep it quiet until it was at least somewhere over the channel.

"So is that it?" One of the twins asked as they joined him at the top of the tower.

"Gentlemen, meet Norbert." Harry replied to the red head as he held up the dragon.

"Isn't he cute!"

"Ya know Fred, I can see why Charley likes 'em."

"Yeah, such a sweet little thing."

"So how long until your brother does get here?" Harry asked impatiently.

"Oh, any second now. If you look south you might be able to see him coming."

"It'll be good to see him again. He hasn't been home in about 2 years."

For the next fifteen minutes the three sat there waiting for Charley, discussing classes, the twins' latest pranks, and quidditch, until the group from the preserve suddenly showed up.

"Charley!" the twins cried together as they hugged their older brother.

"All Right there boys, don't break my ribs" the eldest joked, hugging back the twins, "you two staying in trouble?"

"Would we have called you if we weren't?", this earned the two a ruffling of the hair as they were let go.

"So where is this dragon I am spiriting away?"

"Right over here," Harry replied bringing the cage forward.

"thanks son, so you must be young Harry."

"Yes sir"

"You don't need to sir me Harry, I'm only 19, and you are bringing me a Norwegian Ridge," the older boy said kindly, as he picked up the cage and took a closer look at Norbert. "Wow he's a beaut… John take a look" the elder Weasley said as he passed the cage back. "Thank you for this Harry. We didn't actually have a Norwegian, and we'll take good care of it."

The words were said with such solemnity that Harry couldn't think of what to say, so blurted out, "His name's Norbert, and he seems to like rabbits."

This in turn caused the group of dragon keepers to laugh, "I'll bet he does, we'll don't worry, we'll take care of him, and with that, and a few more words for the twins, the group was off, back into the night and the three kids turned to their dorms to save what was left of the night.

A few worrying days later, with Harry looking for signs that Charley had been caught on the face of the twins, Naruto's letter finally arrived. Reading the letter in a back corner of the library, Harry was more surprised at his friends tone than the revelations.

'Wow, a Shinobi who actually kills people, who'd a thunk it?' He thought to himself sarcastically, 'it's good to know the books actually got it right.' The second revelation evoked only slightly more of a reaction, 'wow, a demon sealed inside him. Damn do I have a lot to learn.' But more than anything the general tone of the letter which seemed to suggest that Harry might reject his friend over these two revelations actually angered him. He didn't have many friends, in fact he really only had Naruto, everyone else was more of an acquaintance, so he wasn't about to dispose of him over something which seemed so irrelevant. Reaching into his back Harry pulled out a piece of parchment to quickly start writing his response, pointing out how much of an idiot his friend was being for thinking such a thing.

By the end of the letter Harry felt great. It was nice to be able to help out a friend, it gave the boy a strong sense of accomplishment that even thousands of miles away he was and would be able to back up his friends.

As he was leaving the library a few minutes later though, he ran into some acquaintances, Neville and Hermione, with books and newspapers spread out in front of them.

"Hey Longbottom, Granger, how's it going?"

"Not bad, just doing some research."

"Fair enough"

"Yes, we know that the headmaster is hiding something in the school, we are trying to find out what" Hermione Granger added as she put down a book, grabbing another one from the stack in front of her.

"Why?" Harry asked as he took a seat opposite her.

"What do you mean why?"

"I mean why are you looking into it."

"Because it is being hid behind a giant three headed dog!" the girl almost screeched, causing Mrs. Pince the librarian to give her a very pointed look.

"Right, I would take that as a sign to leave it alone."

"What?" she hissed at him after quickly checking to make sure the librarian wasn't looking.

"The headmaster obviously wants to protect something, and told us not to go there, so why are you looking into it?"

"Because I want to know, and if you thought about it for half a second you would see that they are practically daring us to look into it. If you will think back Dumbledore didn't tell we couldn't go there, only that we were taking a huge risk by doing so."  
A pensive look past over the boy as he thought back to the start of term feast for a second, before answering the girl, "Granger, you may be right, but even if he is, do you really think he was daring first years? If I were you I would leave it alone."

"Yes well if I were you I would leave me alone. I've got studying to do." She said as she turned back to her book in a huff.

Wow, such hostility from someone he was coming to regard as at least an acquaintance hurt, more than Harry had thought it would, he had only been trying to help.

"Alright, I'm going, but if you want my advice, your sticking your nose where it doesn't belong again. People have a right to keep secrets from others, even from you, its called privacy," and with that he walked off, heading down to the Salle to burn off some anger that the Granger girl was so good at inspiring in him.

"Ok team I have some good news."

"What?" his three students almost shouted from where they were kneeling in front of him, Naruto even going as far as jumping to his feet, before being knocked on the top of the head causing him to fall back down.

"You are being pulled out of rotation for a while. A few days ago you were complaining about always doing the same type of mission. Well in order to broaden your horizons we are going to need to train more. So for the next two months at least we are not going to be doing any more missions" they're Sensei replied as he looked down at them. "Now if you want, you can take some D rank mission in your own time to make up for the loss of income, but we wont be leaving the village for some time."

"But sensei, we have a great team dynamic, and I thought we were all doing good with the stuff you are teaching us." Misu said, "so what do we need to learn that we can't learn either in the field or in between missions?"

"Elegance and Etiquette," the man replied.

"Elegance and Etiquette, what's that?" a bemused Naruto asked from the ground as he furiously rubbed his head.

"Naruto, you are going to learn about being polite, and the correct way to act when meeting people."

"What's wrong with how I am now?"

"Well, for one, some people might find your style a little abrupt, and for two, it is not the way it is done at the upper echelons of society." At this point their sensei squatted down to their level, "Naruto what are we?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if you had to describe all four of us in less than four words what would they be?"

After a second of thought the boy answered, "were Konoha ninja"/

"Exactly. Now Makoto, what's a ninja?"

"A warrior that's learned to fight using Taijutsu, Ninjutsu & Genjutsu?"

"Almost perfect Makoto, Misu, do you want to offer a shorter answer?"

"We are highly qualified mercenaries under the command of a Kage?"

"What about missing nins, and ones from the smaller villages?"

"So we are highly qualified mercenaries then."

"Better." Hamaki said before standing up to address them again in voice that made them pay attention, "but we are more than that. We are mercenaries trained to fight from the shadows. A true ninja should not be seen by his enemy, or the bystanders at all. We wear these Hitai-ates in the village as a sign of our position, and on some missions to advertise our presence and generate more business for the village, but when you get to certain missions, you are going to need to kill someone and have no one know you are even there. If all we were were warriors or mercenaries then we would be like the Shinobi, strong and powerful in their own right, but were not. We don't believe in fighting fair, and we sometimes have to do things that should never be reported. You might need to poison a high level bureaucrat in another country, or protect one in Fire Country. To do that you will need to blend into the background, not giving away what you are until it is time to come out and strike, or defend. For that you need to know how to move in that world... Do you understand?" he asked looking at each of the three waiting for them to show they had. "So for the next few months you are going to be learning how to carry yourselves in social situations."

"Alright Hamaki-sensei, lets get started then, what's first?" Naruto asked once again jumping up.

"First Naruto, you calm down. Second, I have had to call in some tutors for this, people who are better at this than I, so starting tomorrow you will be reporting to the Geisha house near the hot springs for lessons at nine in the morning."

"The Geisha house? Sensei, my mother will kill me, one time I asked her about it, she boxed my ears and told me never to mention it again!" Makoto said in a worried voice.

"And Sensei, I'm a girl, I can't be seen going into a place like that?" Misu added a look of shock on her face.

"What's a courtesan?" Naruto asked looking confused at the reaction from his two teammates.

All three other members of Team 14 turned to stare, open mouthed at their team member.

"You've never heard of the courtesans?"

"Dude what is wrong with you?"

"Naruto, courtesans are women who offer their services as escorts for visiting nobles and businessmen who visit the village. They make sure that all their needs are taken care of while they are staying here."

"What like the guy at the front desk of the hotels we stay at when we are on a mission?"

"Sort of like that except they train to a much higher standard to make sure they can take care of any problem that comes up."

"What like running out of ramen?"

"Yes… that… and they are entertainers, they can all play an instrument, something you might learn how to do, and they take a vow of secrecy, so people go there to get stuff off their chest."

"Oh, ok, so why the reaction from Makoto and Misu?"

"Because they are being stupid. Listen you two," he said turning to the other two genin, "you need to learn what they have to teach you. You can either choose to explain the situation to your parents, and blame me for it, or, not tell them and hope they don't find out. Frankly I don't care, but if you don't decide to learn this stuff it will limit your career, and that of your teammates! Understood?" He asked in a no nonsense voice while shooting them a withering look. With their nod he dismissed the group, happy that everything had worked out. Getting the house to agree to it had been easier than he thought, especially with Naruto, but those women knew a bit what it was like to be accused of being something you weren't, and liked the idea of being more help to the village they had decided to serve in their own way.


	11. Chapter 11, Important Lessons

Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words" **= spoken by monster, or used for emphasis. "_words_" = magical language (e.g. Parseltongue or Gobbledygook)

Ch. 11

"Wrong, do it again."

…

"Wrong, do it again."

…

"Wrong, do it again."

...

"Hold on, let me guess, Wrong, do it again." The blonde haired boy shouted out as he headed out of the door, after failing to introduce himself properly for the 7th time today, and making the old woman smile at his antics.

"If you know you are doing something wrong, then stop doing it." She said with a laugh.

Naruto had been attending these lessons now for almost two months, it was, in his opinion, the hardest thing he had ever done. It didn't help that Harry had encouraged it. 'What was that old line Harry had quoted?... Oh yeah, Be courteous to everyone, and always have a plan to kill them.' Unfortunately thinking about that caused a small giggle to escape just as he once again walked into the room.

"Wrong, do it again, the object of the exercise is to try and improve each time Naruto, not make it worse."

Clenching his teeth in fury the boy turned and headed back out of the room. Who knew introducing yourself to an older woman took so much effort.

It was another two hours before Naruto got all the customs down for meeting an older noblewoman of the court… Two very frustrating hours.

"Zuki-san how the hell did all these stupid rules get made?" the blonde genin asked as he sat in the library playing Shogi with the woman, complaining.

"Because people don't always want to fight one another Naruto."

A "hnhh" sound escaped the boy as he looked at his first real mentor curiously.

"The rules of etiquette give us a way of meeting people we know nothing about, and getting through the event without anyone getting offended." She said as she looked at the still confused boy, "Ok, for example, let's say that you had never met an Akimichi before allright?"

"OK" the boy answered no sure where this was going."

"What would happen if you called him fat?"

"He would try to kill me" the boy said thinking of the normally friendly clan.

"Correct, and they aren't the only ones who would try and kill someone for saying the wrong thing. The rules of etiquette mean that everyone has a set of rules they can follow telling them how to act in different situations, so at least in those, no mistakes can be made. Sure they can seem a little odd, but this way everyone knows the rules, and all the bases are covered."

"Ah, ok, but how come I have to do all this weird stuff when women are around?"

"Because everyone loves his mother."

"What?"

"Everyone loves his or her mother Naruto. One thing that is almost guaranteed to start a fight is to insult someone's mother. You get mad when people make comments about your parents and you don't know anything about them. So you treat old ladies with respect so you don't get their sons mad, and you treat younger women nicely too, so the old women don't feel like you are paying special attention to them because they are old. No woman wants to be called old Naruto."

"But some of them are. Hotaru-san is like 45 or something."

"Oh, and is 45 old?" the librarian asked a hint of steel audible in her voice.

"Well yeah…"

Before Naruto could say another word he felt himself falling back over his chair, and feeling like he had just been punched right in the middle of his forehead. Turning to look up he saw a slightly annoyed mentor who was now somehow standing over him.

"Naruto, I am 47, and I am not some old crone."

Rubbing his head in confusion the boy looked at the woman, "I didn't say you were a crone Zuki-san, but lets face it your no…"

_CRASH_

A few seconds later Naruto was picking himself up off the floor, leaning against

the bookcase he had just been knocked into, as he was reminded that this woman was still, while a librarian, a jonin, quite capable of doing serious damage.

"I'm no what?"

Naruto quickly realized the situation and putting his hands up in defeat tried to find a way out this problem he was somehow in, "I didn't mean anything by it Zuki-san," worried that she might go for another hit, until all at once she seemed to calm down.

"And now you know why you need to learn how to behave,... so old ladies don't keep on beating you up."

It took a second for the lesson to sink in, as the boy tried to assimilate what had just happened until the librarian called out to him, "Naruto, stop leaning against the wall, fix those scrolls you knocked over, and hurry up its your move."

* * *

"Wow Granger I wouldn't think you would need to be revising so hard for the exams." Harry said as he passed the girl sitting at a table with Neville her head burried in a book while a stack of them sat waiting at her elbows. The exams themselves were only a few weeks away.

"Were not studying, actually" Neviller replied from his seat, "thanks to both of you, even I'm in the clear, were working on that cerberus on the third floor."

"Still?" the Hufflepuff said in amazement.

"Yes, Still! It may have escaped your notice Potter but I'm not the type to give up easily." She said in that angry tone of voice she seemed to save for him. "However I'm sure you need all the help you can get, so I won't keep you from your studies," she said obviously trying to get rid of him.

"Nope" Harry replied, "I'm good." Which in fact he was. In fact the whole of Hufflepuff was looking forward to the end of year exams. Some of the older students had even remarked that they could never remember so relaxes a group of Seventh and fifth years. "I just came here to do a bit of light reading."  
"Well you can go and do it somewhere else, we've got important work to do." The girl said before turning back to Neville, "Check the next one, I'm sure I've heard the name Flamel somewhere," doing everything she could to ignore the "Boy-who-lived", who was now smirking at Her!

"Hermione, what is your problem with Harry?" Neville asked once the boy had left the library.

"Nothing Neville."

"Don't give me that, everyone else, even Ron you at least treat civilly, but not Harry."

At that the girl let out a huge huff before putting the book away and turning to her friend, "Well Ron's just a prat, you have to make allowances for people like that."

"And Harry?"

"He's just so smug and proper, ''Why Hello Miss Granger'" she said, trying to imitate his voice, "'He can't even call me by my name, And do you ever watch him in class? He never does any of the work. When the rest of the class is practicing a new charm or a piece of transfiguration he just sits at the back reading, or talking with the person next to him."

"So, he seems to know the spell whenever we work on it together."

"Exactly! So when does he learn the spell?" She asked with an air of triumph. At which point she considered the matter closed and turned back to the books, deciding to finish this mistery before turning to the next one.

Returning to the Sett Harry was about to plop himself down in front of the fire but he had completely forgotten how close the end of the year was. 'Only five or six more weeks until I have to go back to the Dursleys.'

"Hey Harry, worried about the exams?" Leanne asked jokingly, as she made her way down the stairs from the girl's side of the house.

"No, just thinking about how time flies."

"Yeah, I can't believe only a few more weeks until I can go home."

"Right" the boy replied drily, "listen, Leanne, you wouldn't happen to know how to swim would you?"

"Swim? Of course. Why?"

"Well I don't know how and I figure now that the weather has warmed up a bit I would try to learn in the lake."

"Wow, you don't know how to swim? I can't believe it. Sorry Harry, I know how, but me teaching you wouldn't be a great idea. If something goes wrong I don't know if I'm strong enough to be able to pull you out of the water. Why don't you ask Oldridge. He might be able to teach you and if something goes wrong he should be able to deal with it."

"Yeah, good idea, thanks, I hadn't thought about something going wrong."

"Glad I could help, now as repayment, escort me to supper," she said offering her arm for him to take.

"Yeas Ma'am." He replied as he tucked it underneath his own and they headed out the door.

The next Saturday found Harry wadding into the lake wearing nothing but a pair of exercise shorts, 'I'm going to have to buy some swimming trunks over the summer' the boy thought to himself as he made his way out to where the fifth year prefect was waiting for him.

"Don't worry Harry you'll shouldn't drown too much" Leanne called from the shore where she sat with most of the first year Hufflepuffs, with more than a trace of laughter in her voice.

"What are you lot even doing here anyway?" Harry shouted back causing the group to snicker for a few seconds.

"Well you always seem to know everything like some kind of super Ravenclaw. We wanted to see what happens when the Boy-Who-Lived actually is learning something."

"Oh in that case remind me never to come to you for advise again."

"Oh don't be like that, we're just here to support you, now go on Oldridge is waiting for you," she responded good naturedly.

"Wow talk about being sore about the whole thing,"one of the other first years mumbled.

"You be quiet Smith, you know Harry is just shy, and doesn't like being in the spotlight. If you are going to be mean you can go off somewhere else."

So with seemingly the whole world looking on Harry started to learn how to swim. "Alright Harry we are going to start with just simple floating, I want you to lie on your back, and I will hold you up with my hand."

"You're going to hold up my entire body with your hand?" the first year replied with a hint of incredulity.

"Don't worry about it Harry, the body floats, so I don't need to hold you up, just support you."

"OK, if you say so," and with that Harry leaned back into the water.

"Good, now Harry, you are too rigid, I want you to relax, loosen your muscles a bit...good, now just breath normally, nice regular breaths... excellent." The tips carried on

for a few more minutes until Harry realized that he could no longer feel the hand that at one point had been holding up his back. A minor flash of fear hit the boy, as he tried to keep on floating while being very aware that his safety net was gone. Luckily after a few seconds of this Rupert told him to lower his feet and stand up.

"Congratulations Harry, step one, done," the prefect said giving Harry a pat on the back. From there, the lesson quickly progressed first into Harry learning to tread water, then the doggy paddle and lastly the front crawl.

After that the next forty five minutes was spent in practicing, swimming around the lake, staying in the shallower section, until Rupert finally called an end to the class and everyone went inside.

* * *

"Damn stupid dinner parties"

_Kathunk_

"Didn't even serve any ramen"

_Swoosh Kathunk_

Naruto kept up his grumbling as he practiced with his kunai. He had actually started doing better in his deportment classes, now that Zuki-san had explained it all to him, but it was still not something that came easy to him. The boy found he had to constantly remind himself why it was necessary, and to make matters worse apparently along with remembering who to talk to first, and when to bow, there were now only certain specific subjects he was allowed to talk about. This had come to a head yesterday evening when Hotaru- san had hosted a practice dinner party. He had been telling her how awesome it was to be a ninja and about this jutsu he had been reading about when suddenly she had to leave the table. The next thiing the blonde genin knew the entire table was looking at him like he had grown an extra head.

With the last of his kunai now embedded and inch deep into the final target Naruto cleaned up the practice field and started to jog home. It was a little earlier than he would usually end his exercises, but after the party it had been suggested that he needed to start reading the newspaper. Apparently it was important both from a shinobi point of view and in order to give him some safe topics to discuss at parties. 'There always seemed to be something else to learn.' The boy thought as he made his way back to the apartment.

Naruto spent the next several hours going over the paper trying to glean any information from it that might be interesting, even though none of it had anything to do with him. I mean who cares about the budget problems in the land of lightning, or the fact that because of the extreme drought in the land of waves again this year they needed more food? How was any of this going to affect him?

Three hours after first picking up the paper Naruto glanced up at the clock and cursed. He was late!

Jumping out the window the boy dashed towards the Hokage tower.

'All this damn studyin' is throwing off my schedule,' the boy grumbled as he jumped along the rooftops arriving at his destination just in time to pick up a D rank mission before it was too late. With all his new studying and his sensei not taking them on missions until they knew the new material, Naruto now had to do D ranks by himself in order to pay his bills.

Jeez, who knew being a ninja was going to be this tough!

* * *

"So how are the exams coming along?" Sir Cadogan asked as Harry took a drink from his water bottle.

"Not bad, I was expecting them to be much harder. You know I can understand why there used to be more subjects taught if the difficulty in the exams haven't changed."

"Well now you 'puffs will just have to do some independent studying for your OWLs and NEWTs."

There was silence for a few seconds until the mood changed when Sir Nick chimed in, "Harry we need talk."

"Sure, what about?" the boy asked.

"Well you've been great in letting us be involved with the school again, but it has allowed us inside Hufflepuff, and frankly we're worried about you. You get along fine with your other housemates, but you don't seem to have many real friends."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, his voice becoming defensive."

"You're a great boy Harry" the portrait said from the wall, "but you haven't invested yourself in your housemates. You've been nice to them, but you don't have any that you let your guard down around. In fact from what I've heard the closest thing you have to friends are those two Gryffindors you meet in the library every now and then."

"Harry we're not trying to say you've done anything wrong, you're studious, hard working, and you've brought a lot of help and kindness to those around you, we just want you to have the chance to have someone do the same for you. Those swimming lessons I heard of you taking was a good start to that. I'm proud of you for being willing to seek help."

"Remember, you are now a part of this society, so you need to make sure you'll be able to move in it, and that requires real friends. People you can trust to support you and to give you trustworthy advice." Sir Cadogan explained

"So long as it doesn't interrupt his studies."

"Well of course not. Studies first, but don't make others a distant second."

"Also we need to talk about what you're going to be doing over the summer," Sir Nicholas added, "I know you are working on a way to make your life more bearable at home, and you are going to have some homework from the professors here, but one of the things you are going to do is find either a fencing salle or something similar and you are going to practice. Just stay away from any Spaniards, we haven't worked so hard for you to turn into some stupid Carranzist1. And lastly, you might want to check out your family vault, there may be some old swords in there that you can use, or at least some daggers."

"Just don't forget to carry at least one silver blade on you in-case you run into anything nasty."

With that Harry ended his lesson, his last for the year and started making his way back to the Sett. The castle was fairly quiet as many of the older years were still in exams for the next few days, and the feeling of nervous tension was palpable all over the castle keeping everyone quiet, even in the evening, but Harry was looking forward to being able to relax and take in some of the sunshine over the next few days. Those were his thoughts as he trotted through the hallways, until he suddenly found himself almost bowled over, as his body ran into something coming the other way causing him to be knocked into a spin and almost fall to the ground. Righting himself and looking around he saw Neville lying on the ground rubbing his head.

"You alright Longbottom? Sorry I didn't see you there," Harry said the worry evident in his tone as he quickly went to go and help the Gryffindor.

"Owww," the boy replied as he continued to rub his head, "yeah I think so, and it was probably my fault," he added as he allowed himself to be helped up by the 'Puff.

"You sure you're OK?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, thanks Potter." Then all of a sudden the boy's face light up, "Harry, you'll never guess, we found out what the Cerberus is hiding."

"The Philosopher's Stone?" the boy replied a smile on his lips, his body relaxing now that he knew the shorter boy was OK."

"The Phi..that's right, how did you know?" the Gryffindor asked his voice slowing down as he looked at one of the few people he actually considered a friend.

"I've known since that day in the library a few weeks ago when Hermione said she was looking for Nicholas Flamel."  
"So why didn't you tell us, we only found it out today?"

"Because Hermione made it very obvious that my assistance was not desired, and let me guess, you learned about it from a back of a chocolate frog card."

"That's right, Ron got some and he was mad about getting another Dumbledore and he shouted out, "There had better be a Flamel card soon, I'm sick of reading about him on the back of every Dumbledore!' Hermione dived across the common room, almost took out three people to grab Weasley by his robes and demand answers." The boy replied getting excited over the retelling. The whole common room had been shocked by her actions, and the look on her face when she noticed everyone staring at her had been hilarious.

"Well I'm glad you have all that cleared up, I guess Granger can finally relax."

"Are you kidding? Now we're mounting an expedition. Snape's after the stone, we tried to tell McGonagall, but she didn't believe us, so Hermione says it's up to us." the boy said quietly, a look of determination crossing his face as he said this.

"You're kidding? You lot are going to try and take down a Cerberus and what ever else is down there? Do you even know how to get past the dog?"

"Yep, Hermione's got that all figured out, she went down and tricked it out of Hagrid, all you've got to do is play some music and it falls to sleep. We're going in tonight, after lights out... Want to come?"

The question stopped Harry cold, did he want to go? No, it had nothing to do with him, and the whole thing still smacked of someone manipulating the whole thing. But did any of them know what they were up to? 'Granger knows her way around a book well enough, but if Halloween is any indication she will fall apart if it is too tough and Neville will support her all the way, putting them both in hot water'. If he wasn't there to look after them, who knows what would happen? With that being the only conclusion he could come to Harry gave the boy a sharp nod, "I'll meet you all outside the room 10:45, but I've got to say, I don't think this is a wise idea."

"Great Potter, see you then," said a once more exuberant Gryffindor, and with that both children went their separate ways, off to get ready for the nights adventure.

As soon as the pudgy boy was out of sight Harry broke into a quick jog, hurrying back to the Sett. Walking into his dorm he grabbed his towel and checked the clock, seeing it read only 8 O'clock. 'Plenty of time' Harry thought as he made his way to the showers and started to clean up after the training in the salle, by now no longer having to be careful around the myriad of bruises his body sported, his body had long since toughened up to his teachers' training methods. Back in his room he quickly dressed in his pajamas, and put aside some clothes for later in his book bag. With that he went downstairs to read for forty minutes before making a great show of going to sleep.

At 10:00 Harry made his move. Carefully arranging the pillows the boy threw his cloak on, grabbed his bag and made for the exit. As soon as he was in the hallway the boy changed clothes, putting on a dark blue shirt, tucked into a pair of dark grey trousers, 'note to self, I need to buy some black trainers', the boy thought as he stared down at his white shoes. Stashing his pajamas behind the statue just outside the door to the Sette Harry set off for the salle. It seemed odd, Harry had been out exploring several times before, thanks to the cloak, and almost each time he had had to be careful as he ran into patrols of the prefects and the masters on duty, but tonight it seemed like everyone was taking the night off. Harry quickly made it to the fencing room, 'OK, daggers, check, silver blade, check' the boy ran through the list as he grabbed different items off the wall, before turning his eye to the swords and grabbing his favorite practice rapier, putting it into the bag with the rest of his gear. Now at least partially kitted out it was time to make his move.

He arrived at the corridor with ten minutes to spare the trip had been easy, once again filling his head with a sense of dread, 'too easy' he thought.

Fifteen minutes later the rest of the group finally arrived, already increased by one, and with Granger already in a fine mood.

"Why did you have to invite him."

"'Cause he's nice, I thought he would be good to have along, don't you remember that troll?" only to have this met by a very stern glare from the brunette causing him to let out a very subdued "sorry".

"Firstly he got lucky with that troll, and secondly, he isn't nice" the girl growled out as she reached the door, "and thirdly, he didn't even show up, so I guess we're going without him" she finished off triumphantly.

"Why Granger, what a horrible thing to say about me, and may I remind you, you're the one whose late" Harry replied, after quietly taking off the cloak and stowing it back in his bag when they had their backs to him.

Hermione jumped as soon as he spoke, surprised to see him suddenly there, and now even more aggravated that he had somehow snuck up on her, along with being highly embarrassed that she had been caught bad mouthing him behind his back.

"Longbottom, you ready? Weasley, I wasn't expecting you."

"Yeah After Hermione grabbed him he knew something was up, and wasn't going to let us leave him behind."

"Fair enough, shall we get started then?"

Hermione had already grabbed hold of the door and with a huff threw it open, her other hand pulling a wind up music box from her pocket, only to be greeted to the sight of a peacefully sleeping dog, and a harp playing in the corner. A look of disappointment flashed over her face as all four of them entered, and Harry quickly made his way over to the trapdoor while the others stared in amazement at the animal in front of them.

Looking down Harry could see nothing but darkness. Quickly he cast the blue bell flame, only to hear both a hissing noise and the sound of something writhing. Looking down the boy could see what looked to be tentacles wriggling about, obviously trying to evade the flame.

"Cool, Devil's Snare!" Neville said over Harry's shoulder.

"Wow, I didn't think it would burn hot enough to do that."

"Doesn't need to, this is one of those plants that actually doesn't like light."

"Of course it is," Harry mumbled under his breath as he hit himself for forgetting."

Once the shrubbery was no more the group carefully dropped down to find themselves in what looked like an abandoned classroom. With the remains of the plant blocking the rear exit, and the way they had come being too high for any of them to reach at this point, the four moved on to the only door available to them.

The first thing the four noticed as they opened the door was a horrible smell. A mixture of an open sewer, and a bad fishmongers was the only way Harry could describe it, which immediately caused all of them to gag. A smell that was explained as they entered a dimly lit room and saw a large creature lying in a pool of juices. A few seconds after examining it Harry knew what it was, and it was obvious that someone else recognized it too. Just as the Hufflepuff was about to draw everyone away the tallest member of the group, Ron Weasley let out a gaging noise, and then threw up, right down Hermione's back.

The tension in the room shifted as both Neville and Harry turned to stare in shock at what was happening, While Hermione let out a high pitched scream and bolted off, tripping on the body and landing in the fluid. You could tell the exact second she realized what she was seeing, as the look of horror and embarrassment, ended, and she stopped screaming for a second, only to begin again, with increased pitch and volume, as her face took on a look even more frightened than the one just moments before.

Reacting as quickly as he could Harry ran to her, trying to ignore the dead creature, and grabbed Hermione. Picking her up under her arms the boy tried to move as fast as possible to the other door, while manhandling this dead weight. Once through the door he quickly turned around and set her down against the wall, her back to the previous room. The two were soon joined by Ron and Neville, both showing a mixture of shock and fright over what they had seen in the room. Both boys were re-evaluating their decision to come on this adventure having seen what was waiting for them.

"Do either of you know a way to summon some water to clean her up?" Harry asked as all three looked on at the bushy haired girl who was staring at her hands, hands covered in the blood of the dead troll that she had fallen over. The three just stood there continuing to look at her until Neville finally thought of something, "Hogwarts Elves," the boy called out, causing the other two to stare at him.

"What?" asked Harry, looking at the Gryffindor like he had gone mad, only to be shocked into silence again when a very small humanoid like creature with long pointy ears, wearing some kind of toga, suddenly appeared.

"Sir requests something?"

"Yes, we need four buckets of water. Immediately."

As soon as Neville had said this, and before anybody else had a chance to add anything the creature disappeared.

"...What?..." Harry asked again, a look of amazement on his face. Only to be interrupted again as four of the creatures popped back into existence, each carrying a large bucket full to the brim of water, and disappeared again.

"...What?..."

"Come on Harry help me" Neville said as he grabbed two of the buckets and took them over to his other friend. This seemed to snap the boy out of his trance. Grabbing the first bucket Harry unceremoniously dumped the contents over the girls head.

Once again the girl let out a scream, as she was shocked back into reality and finally took her eyes off her hands.

"It's going to be O.K. Granger, you're going to be fine." The black haired boy said as he grabbed one of her arms while motioning Neville to do the same and plunged it into the second bucket of water, and started to try and rub off the blood and other juices that coated the appendage, Only to have the arm to suddenly yank itself back as Hermione stared at him, with a look that made you think there were tears mixed in with the water still dripping down her face.

"W...w...what was that thing?"

"A troll" Harry said in as soothing a manner as he could manage.

"A damn headless troll mate" Ron added, only to suddenly feel very awkward as both the other boys shot him looks that were doing there best to at least seriously maim.

"A h..h...head," At this point her stomach took over and Hermione did her Ron impression, vomiting all over the floor to her side.

A few seconds later she turned back to them, her face white as a sheet, and her arms trembling at her side, "a headless t..t...troll?" she asked, looking at the two boys who were crouched in front of her, nodding slowly.

With that she launched herself into Harry's arms and started to cry.

The Boy-who-lived suddenly found himself in a very awkward position as he held the girl upright, and stared in bewilderment at his other two companions. After a brief second of confusions he slowly put his arms around her and did the only thing he could think of, "there there," the boy said quietly as he patted the girl on the back of the head, then turning to stare angrily at Weasley again as his hand reminded him what caused all this in the first place.

"Listen, we can't turn back now, we can't reach the hole in the ceiling, and I don't think you should go back through that room. Our only option is to move forward!" He said as he continued to support her weight and comfort her.

After a few minutes of this Neville came up, took one of her arms and slowly the two started to make their way down the corridor, Hermione obviously leaning against the boy for support, as she tried to come to terms with it.

The end of the hall opened into a high ceiling-ed room filled with, 'what sort of birds are those ' Harry asked himself as he stared at the winged creatures, "Holy Crap, they're .keys", Ron shouted in joy, the lightheartedness of this trap lifting his spirits a little. Looking around the rest of the room, the team then noticed a door at the other end, and three brooms leaning against the wall.

After staring in wonderment at the keys for a second Harry was jarred back to reality as Ron started to bark orders, "Neville, you & Harry jump up on those brooms, I'll stay down here and see if I can find any clues about the key."

Understanding the urgency of the situation the other Gryffindor carefully leaned Hermione against the wall before heading for one of the brooms, while Harry just advanced on the door.

"Come on Harry, we don't have time for this, we need to find the key," the larger boy said as he grabbed a broom and shoved it into his hands.

"Just figured I'd try something , this guy doesn't seem to like to waste time", Harry said looking down the hall they had all just come.

"It's obviously locked."

"Weasley, whoever is in front of us obviously is in a hurry, and doesn't care about people coming behind him," the black haired boy said grabbing the knob and turning it, "so why do you think he would bother to lock the door behind him?" He asked as it opened a little bit.

It was Neville's cry of "Wait" that halted the other two boys from charging into the next room. The two turned to see the boy staring in turn at the broom in his hand, "W...w...we can go back now," he said, his voice showing hints of both fear and determination.

"Go back? But we're almost at the end."

"We don't know that" Harry stated looking at Ron, while mentally reprimanding himself for forgetting about the rest of the team, while trying to show up Ron's stupidity. "Neville's right, with the brooms we can go back and get help, and we don't know what's in front of us, we're just charging in like blind fools."

"So what do you suggest?" a very sarcastic red head asked.

"Well we use the brooms to go get help of course." Neville said, from where he now stood, laying a comforting hand on Hermione.

"But by then it might be too late,... and we might need the brooms to get through the next the next few traps. We can't split up" Ron replied.

Suddenly Harry's hand came up and smashed into his forehead, 'Oh God, I'm an idiot', the boy thought before turning from the rest of the group and shouting, "Sir Nicholas!" at the top of his voice. The other three looked at each other baffled as he continued to shout out the name six more times before sitting down on the stone flagstones.

"What did you just do Potter?" Neville asked as the three Gryffindors looked at the badger like he had just gone insane.

"Called for backup."

"What do you mean 'called for backup'?"Hermione asked, "you just shouted at the hallway."

"Exactly, I called for Sir Nicholas?"

"Whose he?" a dumbfounded Ron asked.

"Wow, you lions don't know Sir Nicholas? The ghost of Gryffindor tower?"

"What Nearly Headless Nick?"

"I really don't like that name," a stern voice called out behind them, causing the three Gryffindors to jump, shrieking as they did so. "So Master Potter, you called?"

"Thanks for coming Sir Nick", replied his student before explaining what was going on to the ghost. "So I was hoping" the boy said as he concluded his tale, "that you could scout ahead and then tell us what we would be facing?"

"Why of course dear boy, happy to do it, be a bit of adventure." With that the ghost took off through the door, into the next room.

"So how do you know our ghost?" Ron asked, his ability to forget about his surroundings and become defensive at the invasion of the badger evident in the way he said "our".

"It's a big castle Weasley, and the ghosts aren't confined to their houses." Harry answered back.

In less than five minutes Sir Nicholas came floating through the door again, looking much less composed than last time.

"My boy you need to get your people out of here."

"Why what's up ahead."

"The next room holds a chess game..."

"No problem, I'm excellent at chess" Ron said interrupting the ghost who took a moment to glare at the red head.

"That's great boy, but not an issue, the pieces have been destroyed, you can just walk through." The ghost replied before continuing on, ignoring the embarrassed look on the boy "Then you have a fairly simple riddle, which leads you into a large room where that stupid defense professor is trying to break into a mirror."

"Quirrel?.. Quirrel is the thief? But we thought Snape." Neville stated in disbelief.

"Well it's Quirrel, although there's something wrong with him. We've felt something was odd about him all year, and now he's talking to himself."

"Alright, Suggestions sir?"

"Well the chess set's a non-issue, the riddle is fairly easy, but will only allow for one person to go through..."

"And we have three brooms. So can you escort your three lions up and see if you can't roust a teacher to let them know what is going on?"

"A sound plan, I will see you as soon as I get back."

"Hold on One minute," jumped in the red head, "I'm not taking orders from a badger, and if there's a fight up ahead a Gryffindor should be leading the charge."

"Ye gads! Who is this idiot? The only one here even mildly competent to deal with this situation of you four is Master Potter here. Now stop acting like an ass, and jump on that broom."

"Sir Nicholas, pay attention to Miss Granger, she had an unfortunate incident with the troll, make sure she gets to the nurse before heading back." Harry quietly said to the ghost as they slowly made their way back.

As soon as they had left Harry reached into his bag, grabbing some knives. Two were tucked into waistband of his trousers, one at his back, and the other on his left hip. 'This summer I need to buy my own knives, with some sheathes' the boy thought as he moved around slowly to make sure they weren't cutting him. Lastly he tucked the silver blade into his right sock, deploring the lack of boots, and hoping the elastic would hold it as he stood up, and made his way towards the next room.

Stepping quietly into the next room he was met with a line of statues. Crossing the first line of pieces he could see across the board to where the other side should have been set up. Instead, the central pieces had been smashed, different bits that had once been the king and queen mixed in with parts of pawns, all strews against the back wall. Without stopping for very long to investigate he made his away across the floor, to the last room.

Just like Sir Nicholas had said, Harry entered a large circular room with three steps separating an outer ring from a lower inner circle, and pillars supported the ceiling all the way around the top of the steps. In the middle of the room a robed man was leaning over a mirror.

"Stupid Mirror" Quirrel muttered as he cast another spell on the mirror. "I wont fail master". After a few minutes of watching this continue Harry quietly moved along the pillars until he was directly behind the Defense against  
Dark Arts teacher, and had just started to creep up on him, when suddenly another voice sounded out from the professor.

"Enough! Use the boy you simpering idiot."

"Which boy master?"

"Behind you".

Turning quickly Harry was discovered, his attempt to creep up on the professor failing miserably. "Potter what are you doing here?" the angry, and no longer stuttering teacher demanded.

"I could ask you the same thing professor."

"Don't take that tone with me boy. Now get over here." With that he stabbed his wand forward, and ropes shot from it. Harry tried to dive to the side, but for all his practice, nothing had actually prepared him for fighting magic, the ropes followed him, and before he knew it he was captured. It would seem all his hard work that year had been for naught.

Dragging the boy in front of the mirror, Quirrel stood him up. "Now Potter you will tell me exactly what you see here."

The look of fear on Harry's face was replaced by confusion for a second as he looked at the professor, "it's a mirror,... I'm going to see me, bound in rope, being held up by you...That's how mirrors work."

Before he could say anything else the man hit him, knocking him to the ground, where his head thudded against the stone floor.

"Don't play the fool with me boy!" The professor hissed as he once again pulled the child to his feet, and, grabbing his chin, turned him to face the mirror, "Now Look!"

"Wow!" Harry declared as he stared into the image. all over the mirror new things were coming into view, There he stood with a grownup couple standing next to him that looked exactly like he always imagined his parents would. The image in his head of Naruto standing next to them with an even larger grin. The picture was enchanting, and everything seemed to fade away until...  
"Well?" Quirrell demanded.  
The voice changed the picture. Suddenly another person joined the picture, a certain professor was now visible, lying on the ground, bruised and bloody. "What do you see?" This time the question was followed up with another hit to the head, reaquainting Harry with the floor. It also knocked the knife at his back loose, causing it to dig into his buttock.  
Harry couldn't tell you if it was the picture of his family and friend that did it, or the sharp pain in his posterior. But the boy felt some of his courage and his ability to think returning to him,enough at least to start fiddling for the knife at his side, and responding " I saw me, standing over your bloody corpse!"  
A look of shock passed over the professor's face, an emotion Harry quickly took advantage of to cut through the ropes, and start to make his move. He just wasn't fast enough though, Quirrell was faster to react than Harry thought he would be after the way he acted in the classroom. As the boy started to spring to his feet he was hit by an _expelliarmus _forcing the knife to fly from his hand as he in turn was knocked back to the ground. Looking up the shock was definitely gone, replaced by anger as the man pulled back the arm holding his wand as if to throw something at the boy until the other voice suddenly called out, and not from Quirrell's mouth, "enough! Let me deal with the boy".  
"Master you're not strong enough"  
" Shut up you fool, I am strong enough for this."  
" As...as you command my lord" he replied standing up straight and starting to unravel the layers of his turban.

As the last layer was being pulled away something new came into view. It looked almost like another face was growing out of the top of the professors head, except this one looked alot like a ghost. It reminded Harry a bit of when Sir Nick was incorporating one of the training dummies. Or at least it would have,except the sight left him both speechless and thoughtless, as curiosity was replaced by horror.

"Now boy you will tell me, how do I get the stone?" the face demanded.

Harry tried to move away from... whatever was in front of him... not even taking the time to try and stand up as he backed up. "I don't know what you're talking about"

Harry tried to roll out to the side to change direction, maybe get some room, but as slowly as the Quirrell creature seemed to be moving Harry could not create enough space. 'If I could just get to the knife in my boot' the boy thought as he continued to try and find an opening.

The fourth time he rolled he used the fact that he moved onto his front to try and spring into a standing position, only for the thing to snag his foot and bring him crashing down once again. Slowly but surely the boy was corralled back until finally his back was against the stairs, then a few seconds later against one off the columns. It was over, now it was just a matter of time.

The creature reached out its hands for Harry's neck, a sneering look of victory plastered all over that face like thing, while Harry tried to think of anything he could do to stop it, refusing to give into the fear. That's when he saw him, Sir Nick like he had never seen him before Stormed into the room, his smoky ethereal nature which was normally condensed into the shape of his old body was now flowing out and behind him like a cyclone.

"UNHAND THAT BOY" A terrible voice shouted.

The distraction was just what Harry needed. As the creature, startled turned to see what had appeared the boy brought his right leg up, while frantically grasping for the blade with his hand. Finally after what seemed like forever his hand closed around the hilt of the silver knife and plunged it directly into Quirrel's chest, as the startled look turned back to him, and blood started to spurt out of the whole as he removed the blade for another stab, as he repeated the motion until the body fell to the side, the blood now flowing from several different puncture wounds.

Slowly Harry sat up, the entire front of his body covered in the things blood, as he stared down at the body that only a short while ago had been one of the professors at this school. Everything else fazed out as he came to grips with what he had done, and he could not tear his eyes away from the body. Sir Nicholas carefully laid a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder as they watched the last of the life leave the body.

Suddenly everything was again thrown into chaos as a black mist rose out of the corpse. Before Harry could react his mentor traveled through his body, drawing his blade and ready to fight the thing, as it shouted and shot off into one of the walls, disappearing into the castle, and from there who knows where.

"Henry...Henry, Look at me Henry" The ghost said as it tried to get the boy to focus again on the real world, and deeply wishing he was still living so he could slap his student to make him pay attention.

"I...I killed him!" the boy finally said

"No my boy, you killed it." Sir Nick replied in a firm voice.

"When Quirrell allowed himself to become possessed like that he lost whatever claim he had to his humanity!"

"I...killed him."

"And it was going to kill you. What do you think I have been teaching you this whole year, how to arrange flowers? Listen to me boy, what did you think was going to happen? You are Nowhere near skilled enough to take a regular wizard alive, let alone that abomination," the ghost said as he looked the boy in the eye, "I know you don't want to hear this right now, but I'm proud of you, you did the right thing here,... come on, lad, let's get you cleaned up."

Harry could only nod dumbly at his mentor as he tried to process everything. "So what do we do now?"

"Not much, we get you cleaned up, and then we go and find that stupid headmaster and we tell him what happened."

"Oh my god, I killed him"

"Not this again..."

"...but the headmaster, the cops, how am I going to able to explain this?" Harry asked in a hurried and panicked voice as everything he had done came crashing down on him again.

"Don't worry about it..."

"What do you mean don't worry about it? I don't know what it was like in your day but..."

"**Wake up Potter!** Now pay attention," Sir Nick said as he tried to ground the boy, "don't you remember me saying that we ghosts had felt something odd about him all year long?" the ghost said waiting for his student to show understanding before continuing, "don't you think we told someone?"

A look of understanding passed over the boy, "you mean he knew about this?"

"He knew something was up with Quirrell, he knew someone was after the stone, why do you think he pulled it out of Gringotts just hours before the bank was almost robbed?"

As the teacher spoke he could see the look of understanding give way to anger, and quickly moved on not giving Harry a chance to butt in, "Listen he probably thought he could control the situation, and that no one would get hurt, and knowing him, he is going to use it as a way to make you rely on him when he gets this swept under the rug. So all you have to do is let him do the work, and you'll be fine, and after this is all over we will talk!"

The anger remained on the boy's face for a few more seconds, before he let the air out and finally just said, "so what do we have to do now?"

"Well we don't have much time, firstly, where are your weapons?"

"The Rapier is still in my bag, and one of the knives is over there, the other two are here," he said reaching out and pulling out the knife from his back, to join the silver one.

"Good, do you have anything to wipe them off with?"

"I've got one of my school robes."

"Then get to it..."

"...Allright," Sir Nick said as Harry finished wiping down the blades, "leave the weapons out, and put the robe back in the bag,"the ghost said in a commanding voice before turning his back on the boy and calling out "Beally," once again causing one of those small creatures to appear.

'that tiny thing again.'

"Beally, I need you to take Master Potter's bag back to his room, and return these to the Salle. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course Beallies can Sir Knight Sir." But before the small creature could disappear the knight motioned him closer and whispered a few instructions before the creature dissapeared.

That was all Harry would know as seconds later a wave of tiredness swept across him, and he passed out.

* * *

1. Jeronimo de Carranza was a famous Spanish sword master who developed a whole style of fighting based around certain geometric equations, the idea being that by using mathematics he could develop the perfect way to fight. His work was highly regarded in Spain, but due to the complexity and eccentric methods laid out in his tome Trata de la Philosophia de las Armas y de su Destreza y de la Aggression y Defension Christiana his work was apparently disregarded and scorned by many in Western Europe. Add to that the fact that during Sir Nicholas' lifetime (which I am making Elizabethan in this story even though it is not true to cannon) the most powerful and dangerous enemy to England had been Spain, which would have caused him to be naturally suspicious of them.


	12. Chapter 12 The End of the Year

**Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor any of the characters, and concepts associated with them.**

'words' = thoughts "words" = spoken "**words**" = spoken by monster, or used for emphasis. "_words_" = foreign language (e.g. Parseltongue, French or Gobbledygook)

NOTE: I have received a lot of messages about the Henry vs. Harry issue. Firstly, traditionally Harry is a nickname, like Charlie, Bill, Ron, Jim, Dan, or Mike.

Secondly, Harry comes from a magical family, the wizards seem to have a culture that is more old fashioned or traditional, not moving forward with the times as some might say.

Thirdly given the boy's celebrity status in the wizarding world a lot of people feel they know him, and in the papers/books of their culture he has always been referred to as Harry, therefore for this story, people (like Ron) immediately call him Harry, without even questioning if that is his real name, or if that is how he wants to be addressed by people who don't really know him. He is called Henry however by his true friends, who know him, and aren't just adoring fans.

Fourthly, based on the messages I have gone back and noticed my own inconsistencies on the use of Harry and Henry. Therefore I have gone back and edited previous chapters to clarify the issue.  
I hope this answers the Henry vs. Harry question.

On another note for those who started reading before the posting of chapter 12, I did go back and make one change. I have never liked the Kawarimi, it never made sense to me. Therefore I have gone and added parameters to it. Namely, what you are swapping places with, is not just any log, or item you can think of, but rather specific items that the ninja has spent there time imbuing with their chakra, causing a magical link.

Chapter 12.

"Yeah? Well screw you too, I didn't want to buy anything anyway!" the boy exclaimed as he threw back the door to the shop. 'The more things change the more things stay the same' Naruto thought as he wandered past the street vendors into the shinobi part of town. He had thought after first making the team, that his problems were over, with his hitai-ate people were going to finally start treating him with respect, but Nooooo! If his sensei wasn't around they were quite happy to ignore him. The extra money he was getting from the missions, especially when he counted in the loot meant that he now had the basic equipment, but it hadn't stretched as far as he had hoped, once the shopkeepers all realized how much more money he had most prices had gone up accordingly. Luckily the store he got his weights at dealt pretty fairly with him, but they didn't carry any clothes in his size, the place Hamaki had taken him to still wouldn't serve him without his sensei being there, something his pride would not let him break down and ask for help with, and grocery shopping was just a joke.  
The boy wasn't paying attention as he mentally ranted about the unfariness of life, and so missed his teammate running up behind him, tapping on his shoulder, "Hey Naruto?"  
"Whaaa...?," the boy replied jumping and turning around, startled by the intrusion, "Oh, hey Makoto what's up?" He said when he saw his teammate, quickly trying to pretend that he hadn't been surprised.  
"My dad called me in, apparently some hunters came by with a few deer, and so he needs me to butcher them while he takes care of the customers."  
"Cool"  
"Eh, so what are you up to?"  
"I'm growing out of my clothes, so I am looking around for new stuff in my size."  
"Oh, that would explain the shouting I was hearing then!"  
"Yup, that would be because of me."  
"Why is that anyway?" the larger boy asked as they turned down the street.  
"Because the owner is a bigoted asshole" Naruto replied a look of anger jumping across his face.  
"Obviously" his teammate replied with a small chuckle, "Hey listen, I am probably going to be carving these beasts for ages, and I need to get to the training fields this afternoon, or Sensei is going to think I'm not putting in enough effort, do you think you could help out? We'll pay in trade?"  
'Wow' Naruto thought as he considered his friends offer. Most of his protein came from fishing these days, as it allowed him to save some money, and didn't take as much time as hunting did, and the potential need to leave on a mission at the drop of a hat for an unknown amount of time made made trapping a bad option. but a couple of hours work would mean great protein, something, according to a book he read in the library, his developing body really needed. "Thanks, sure, lead the way" the blond boy replied.  
Several hours later Naruto could not be happier, it had taken some time and effort to learn how to quarter the large animals, but he knew the basics, and no one would ever claim a ninja had a week stomach, now he had up to a weeks worth of meat, if he was careful with it, and a new skill under his belt. Too bad you couldn't really hunt on missions, that would have made his life easier, but the smell from field dressing the kills, would let any ninja for days afterwards know exactly where you had been. 'I wonder if I can get a job with the tanners' the boy thought as he remembered Makoto telling him what happend to the hides.  
A few hours later Naruto had stored the meat in his freezer and was sitting on the top of the Yondaime's head, contemplating his navel, thinking back on his day.  
"Yo Naruto, what are you up to?" a man asked behind him causing the boy to jump and almost lose his footing on the head.  
"Hamaki sensei .. what is this surprise Naruto day?"  
"Gomen Naruto, so what have you been up to today?"  
"I looked at doing some shopping, then I helped Makoto out at his family shop."  
"Oh, how went the shopping?"  
"Oh,... you know..."  
"That bad huh?"  
"Yeah, and then I ran into Makoto as I was leaving a store, so he started asking questions." the boy said as he looked down at his shoes, kicking some dirt off the top former hokage's head.  
"Just out of curiosity...Naruto, have you thought about telling the rest of the team?"  
"A...about Kyubbi?"  
"Yeah"  
"Of course not! Sensei, you've seen how most of the older ninja react, and the civilians, there are about 8 people in this whole village who treat me decently, I don't want that number to become 6!" The blonde cried out angrily  
"Naruto 6 of us respect you partly because of the burden we know you carry. If you are going to trust your teammates with your life, you should trust them with this. That way you know you will always have 8 people in your corner no matter what, instead of always wondering."  
Naruto quickly calmed down as he started to think about what his sensei had said. On the one hand they might reject him, on the other, they might not, and then they would be true friends. Hamaki eventually left the boy to his musings as Naruto continued to work through the problem, "Gargh" he shouted before jumping onto the ledge behind the head and made his way down.

It was several days later that Naruto came to his decision, 'I need to tell someone,' the boy thought as he once again sat at his desk, ready to write another tough letter to his oldest friend. He would tell Hen-ry first, they had helped each other out as best they could growing up, had shared each other's problems, he should be the first to know. with the decision made, the boy sat down and began to write.

* * *

The first thing Henry noticed when he came to was that he was not on the ground in the round classroom. In fact he was lying in a bed, it was a very hard bed, but definitely not stone. Opening his eyes did not give much information, the ceiling didn't remind him of anything, and turning his head only generated a massive headache. Slowly the pain receded and everything became clear, 'the infirmary,... how the hell did I end up in the infirmary?'  
"Ah, Mister Potter, good of you to wake up, a woman's voice said. Moving too quickly again the headache returned but he was able to identify the matron Madame Pomphrey as she made his way over to him. Soon a vile concoction was forced passed his lips, and the headache went away. "Well Mister Potter it seems you've had an adventure" Pomphrey said as she cast a diagnosis charm, "It also looks like you are going to have almost matching scars."  
"What do you mean Madame Pomphrey?"  
"I mean you now have a new scar on your left bum and it looks just like the one on your right forehead," she answered as she laid a hand on his forehead to check his temperature.  
"Anything else ma'am?"  
"No, just rest, you should be able to get out later today," she said before heading back to her office, "Oh, and no eating any of your gifts till you leave here!"  
Looking around Harry saw a fairly large pile of sweets on the bedside table, "Who brought these?"  
"Oh groups of your Hufflepufs, and the Weasley twins, for a while it was a close call over who was going to win more awards, you or Miss Granger."  
This caused the boy to look around the room for the first time, to see the Gryffindor lying asleep on the other side of the infirmary dorm. The healer spent a few more minutes fussing over the boy and answering his questions, letting him know everyone else was fine, before she went back to her office at the front of the infirmary.

Harry's next visitor was the headmaster himself, "Harry, Poppy says you are going to be fine."  
"Yes sir, she says I should be able to leave soon."  
"She is a rare gem, we are lucky to have her skills."  
"Yes sir,...Sir can I ask,"

"Oh don't worry my boy Ms. Granger is going to be just fine, Poppy gave her a calming draft and a good night's rest should finish the job"

"Thank you sir," Henry replied as he took a breath and hoped this time the old man would let him finish a sentence, "what was that down there?... I thought it was Professor Quirrel, but when he took his turban off there was something else."  
"Aahh..." the headmaster looked looking pained, "the answer to that isn't simple my boy... do you remember the day you got your scar?"  
"They tell me it was on Halloween, Voldemort found my parents, killed them, and died giving me this scar, but I don't remember anything sir."  
"Died..., that is the thing my boy. Not all of us believed he actually died."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Voldemort spent many years studying the black magics, and trying to conquer his biggest fear?"  
"His biggest fear?"  
"Yes Harry, Voldemort isn't his real name, it's a name he gave himself, it's french, it means Flight from death. Many of us think a lot of that time studying the magics was spent looking for ways to escape death."  
"So that thing?"  
"Yes my boy, that thing was Voldemort."  
"And what about Quirrel?" Harry asked becoming scared all over again about what was going to happen next, but wanting to get it over with.  
"Unfortunately, when you allow your body to be shared with something like that, nothing good can come of it... Who knows I might have been able to save him had I known earlier."  
"Yes sir, he just came at me..."  
"No need to relive it Harry my boy, Sir Nick told me all about it," the grey haired wizard replied with a grandfatherly smile, "It must have been a terrible thing to witness. You had no way of knowing that contact with you would cause a reaction with Voldemort that way."  
"What?" the boy asked, 'what the hell is this doddering old fool talking about?' his emotions must have alarmed Madame Pomphrey, as before he could say anything else she was there.  
"Thank you Headmaster, I think that is quite enough the boy needs his rest" she declared as she grabbed hold of the man's arm and lead him out of the hospital.

After the old man left, Henry lay on the bed completely flummoxed. 'What the bloody hell had just happened?' None of what the old codger had just said made sense. Staring at the door the Headmaster had just walked out of in disbelief, Harry did not see Sir Nicholas walking up behind him, or Sir Cadogen pushing Healer Crowpipe out of his frame next to the boy's bed.  
"Well that went even better than expected."  
"Yes but the way he kept going on, he really does love the sound of his own voice."  
Hearing the two snapped Harry out of the daze, and quickly turned to to his two favorite teachers, "What the hell was all that?"  
"Oh, after you passed out, Dumbledore showed up, looking to carry the day, and I made up a story about what happened."  
"So he thinks..."  
"That for some reason the very touch of your hand magically blasted away Voldemort evilness causing Quirrel's body to collapse and burst into flames, and you to pass out."  
"How could he believe that?" the boy asked as he tried to decide whether he should be amazed at the story itself, or in the fact that the headmaster would believe it."  
"Because it's plausible," Sir Nick said as he casually buffed his fingernails against his chest obviously impressed by his own brilliance.

"What? That load of tosh?!"

"Henry, you need to remember that you are only just learning about magic. When you allow your body to host another soul it puts a great strain on it, and when it dies, it results in a huge magical backlash. From what we know about these types of things, the fire is actually... normal."

"And the hand touching part?"

"No one knows what happened the night you died, why you survived when everyone expected you to be dead, or what actually happened to Voldemort. It's unprecedented. So until last night no one knew what would happen if the two of you interacted."

"Yeah, but for him to be destroyed by touching me? The headmaster would have to be an idiot to believe a story like that!"

"Not if you believe in Magic!"

"You know Nick I swear this boy is entering his teenage years early, I always hated the way kids thought they knew everything."

"It's a faze, don't worry he'll grow out of it. Just needs to experience a little more life." The ghost said before turning back to the boy in the bed, "up to now the professors have taught you how to turn a matchstick into a needle and how to levitate a feather, so of course you know everything!..." the ghost said before continuing on, not letting his student get a word in, while the boy in question was amazed to hear his mentor talking to him like this, "Henry, know one knows what happened. Every book about it is nothing but conjecture and fantasy! So we have to work within what people know, there are theories of magic that would make what I said possible. Dumbledore knows these, and they fit in with his world view of Goodness triumphing over Evil, and the very nature of good and bad."

"Oh" was all Harry could think to say as he looked sheepishly at his teachers. Finally after a few seconds of silence he followed it up with a "Thank You, but what about the stone, I never got it, and Voldemort never got it, so does Dumbledore have it again?"

This question caused a snort from both his teachers, "Dumbledore, have the Philosopher's stone?" Sir Cadogan said in laugh.

"What?"

"Sorry son, that is just one of the oldest practical jokes of the last almost 700 years," Sir Nicholas said

"But..."

"But there was never a real philosophers stone!"

"No, it says in the books..."

"Yes, do you remember our conversation on the history of magical Britain? Pretty much the same thing."

"What do you mean?" a now thoroughly confused Harry asked as he stared at the ghost.

"The Philosopher's stone is one of the oldest cons history. No one has ever made one. Its Alchemy, complete hokum for the most part, for most of history the great alchemists were squibs who wanted an easy life. You apply some of your knowledge of potions, use a few ingredients that muggles can't get their hands on, and presto, you were just appointed as alchemist to a royal court, and now had a cushy life, with all your bills being paid by the local lord."

"So Flamel was..."

"Flamel was a very enterprising businessman, who made a fortune when he was the first European wizard to go to the Americas. He set up a dummy company, and created a monopoly importing rare flora and fauna to the magical world. When people then were curious about his money, since he kept quiet about who was behind his company, he used the line about the stone. Since then, the whole family moved to the Americas and set themselves up as one of the major magical families there, pissed the Spanish off no end let me tell you! Infact I think there company is still called the Rock of Wisdom shipping or something I think, it's just in Spanish."

"So Dumbledore working with Nicholas on the twelve uses of dragons blood?"

"Well I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he spent a few years in South America working with a member of the family who was willing to fund some experiments," Sir Cadogan offered.

"But then why is all that hogwash on the chocolate frog card, and in Hogwarts a History?"

"Because British Pureblood society does not spend much time in the new world, and bought that line that old Flamel was peddling back in the day. That and people were hardly going to tell the truth to their children later when it came out how much money some of these greedy idiots spent trying to make their own stone."

"Wow! So everything the other day was for nothing?"

"No! We learned a number of important things. Firstly Voldemort is still alive, that man was a threat to the whole country, so it is good to know he might be again. Secondly we know that Dumbledore is up to something, or why else were all those traps so easy to get through."

"So what happens now?"

"Not much, no proof of anything really, not that those fools at the ministry will accept, and Dumbledore has too much public sway, all we can do is keep our eyes open and our ear to the ground."

"Gee thanks," a now slightly depressed Harry replied as he tried to take in all the information.

"You're Welcome. Now get some rest, the seventh years still have a couple of days of exams, so the sooner you get out of the infirmary the more we can get done before the end of term, and dont worry, I don't think the old coot has anything else up his sleeve," With that the two left him in peace to think, and eat through the boxes of chocolate... Thinking that soon turned to the other night's events.  
"Madame Pomphrey" the boy called out after stewing in his own thoughts for a while.  
"Yes? Is something wrong" the matron asked?  
"Would you get me some paper and a quill, I need to write a letter."  
"Of course," she said turning back to her office and grabbing the necessary materials, "here you go." With the materials now in front of him Potter began to write a letter he had only received, and never even thought he would be writing in turn.

* * *

"Henry, we need to talk to you about the holidays," Sir Cadogen stated as the boy leaned against the wall, after finishing up another training session. He had managed to get out of the hospital yesterday evening, but was already back, trying to get some last minute practice in before the summer started.  
"What about them?"  
"Oh, we just were going to give you some homework."  
"Homework? Come on? You guys never give me any homework!" The boy said, as he saw his plans for the summer suddenly being derailed."  
"We never give you homework because you train everyday as it is. Now don't worry this is just to keep you sharp over the summer."  
"So what did you have in mind?"  
"Firstly, Nick wants you to join a fencing Salle, there should be a few around London."  
"And Cad remarked that it's about time you learned to dance."  
"To dance?" Harry asked, slightly stymied by the request.  
"Yes, to dance, you're turning into a fine young man Henry, but you've spent all your time learning how to fight, you need to be able to deal with other situations as well."  
"Also dancing lessons will help you with your balance, situational awareness, help you meet girls, and how to read people" the ghost finished with a cheeky grin on his face.  
"Girls?...Girls?"  
"Yes my boy, those pretty things with the long hair that run around the school, and never go to the bathroom by themselves, girls."  
"I know what they are," Harry replied, his face bright red with embarrassment, "but I don't see how..."  
"How you need to develop some friends, and start learning how to deal with the opposite sex?"  
"What?" A now seriously embarrassed 11 year old asked.  
"Henry, life can't be all swordplay and combat, don't get me wrong, they're great fun, but if fighting is all you know how to do you won't live a very fulfilled life" Sir Cadogen said.  
"He's right my boy, otherwise why fight, if there is nothing else to it but defeating your opponent what's the point of it all?"  
"OK, if you guy's think it's important" the boy answered not sounding totally convinced.  
"Great, glad we've got that settled" the painting said, now I am going to go and take my own advice, the monks in the painting on the second floor are trying to convince the milkmaids to come to their party." With that Sir Cadogen twirled his moustache, gave his two friends a wink and swaggered out of the painting, leaving his friends in stitches behind him.  
"Alright Henry, that's enough for today. Go on and enjoy the rest of the day, maybe get some swimming in."  
"OK, see you tomorrow." the boy said putting the rapier back on the rack, and pausing to pick up his towel as he walked out of the training hall.

The next morning, the last morning of the term, was the day Naruto's letter finally reached him. Hedwig arrived at breakfast with the rest of the post owls, dropping the letter in her owner's lap while diving to snag the bacon off his plate, before coming to rest on his shoulders where he dutifully petted his friend. "Thank you girl, listen," Harry said as he scratched the bit she loved behind her ears, "we are heading back to the real world today, so do you want to ride with me on the train, or meet me afterwards?" The answer became obvious as the owl dug her claws a little more firmly into the boy's shoulder, getting a firmer hold on her perch where she remained for the rest of the meal.

'Wow' was all Henry could think as he read through Naruto's letter as the train chugged along the tracks back to Kings Cross station, 'and here I thought I had it bad.' His compartment was empty at the moment, Leanne and some of his other housemates were wandering up and down the train saying goodbye to everyone, giving him the privacy to read the letter. Somehow Naruto's letter always made him feel better about his lot in life, and how much worse things could be. 'Imagine having that Sword of Damocles hanging over your shoulder? you screw up and you unleash a crazy magical animal that can easily destroy everything in sight!... I wonder how that will affect something like the Animagus transformation?...Ok, so it looks like I need to write him another letter.' With that Henry stood up to get to his trunk, only for the door to whip open, "Harry Mate! What an adventure aye?" Ron all but shouted as he barged into the compartment, threw his arm around the other boy and collapsed onto the bench dragging his "friend" with him. "No one at home is going to be able to top this story," he continued as an obviously frustrated Hermione and nervous Neville joined them. "Defeating a Cerberus, dealing with deadly plants, getting past a troll, we're heroes!" as Ron continued to talk it was obvious why Hermione and Neville weren't looking happy, having to deal with that for hours might drive him crazy. 'My god he's still talking' was all Henry could think as he tuned the boy back in...  
"I'm just worried about how we are going to top this next year, know what I mean!"  
Suddenly Hermione had had enough, "SHUT UP RONALD!" she shouted as she leaped to her feet to stand over the boy, shocking him into silence, "thank you" the bushy haired girl continued once she had taken a second to regain her breath, "we were all there Ron, we remember it quite vividly enough, you don't need to keep going on about it."  
"How are you dealing with it all Harry?" Neville asked when the brunette had finished berating the loud redhead."  
"Fine, just got to learn to ignore hindsight."  
"What do you mean"  
"Well some of my older friends said that I shouldn't dwell on what I could have done," Henry said as he saw Hermione suddenly start paying attention to him  
"They said it's fine to study what you would do differently next time, so you know for next time, but just because you know now doesn't mean you should think you did wrong then, 'cause at the time, you didn't know." His words seemed to help them as both Neville and Hermione leaned back to think about what he had just said, and somehow seemed to relax, not a lot, but a little bit.  
"Oh Neville I've been meaning to ask you, what was that small creature you called for when we needed the water?" Henry asked after a minute.  
"Those? Those are House Elves. Most magical families have a few as servants, and Hogwarts has a bunch to do things like the cooking and the cleaning."  
"Cool! So you can just summon them whenever you need anything?"  
"Pretty much, although I don't know how much they will actually do for students if we just call for them, they work for the school not for us."  
"That's pretty amazing."  
The group continued to talk for a few minutes until Ron couldn't take being ignored any longer, and declared his intention to go find Seamus and Dean, browbeating the two other Gryffindor first years into joining him.

"See you next term Harry"  
"Bye Leanne, enjoy your summer!" Henry replied as she walked off with her family, while waiting for the last of the Hogwarts students to leave. 'Damn! they showed up,' he thought as the Dursleys walked into view. "I wasn't expecting you to be here," Henry said as they walked up to him.  
"Oh, and what were we supposed to tell the neighbours when you walked down the streets dragging your trunk or arriving by whatever freakish method you expected to use to get back to Little Whinging," Vernon asked sarcastically.  
"Actually I was planning on finding somewhere else," the boy replied.  
"and where did you get the money to do something like that?" Petunia demanded, diving on the issue like a hawk.  
'Damn,' thought Henry, 'I thought they would want me out of their hair.' Quickly the boy started searching for what he could tell them, until he suddenly remembered, 'hold on, I'm a wizard.'  
"I don't need much, and for what I need I can create with magic."  
"No you can't" Petunia countered, "Oh, ...they didn't tell you," she carried on seeing the curious look on his face, "You're not allowed to do magic outside of school until your seventeen."  
"What?" A surprised Harry almost shouted.  
"Keep your voice down boy" Vernon growled  
"No magic until I'm seventeen?"  
"Yes, there's a trace on your wand that you can have removed at that time, but until then you've got to act just like a normal boy."  
'What the hell, why wasn't this in any of the books I read? I knew I should have discussed this with the guys'  
"Anyway, Dumbledore wants you to live with us over the summer."  
"What do you mean Dumbledore wants me to stay here?"  
"I mean your headmaster drop by unannounced and informed us that he was placing protections on our property to keep us all safe under that in order for them to work you have to live here for most of the summer."  
'bullocks, shit, damn, and bollocks' Henry shouted inside the safety of his own head as a took in what is on it was telling him, 'and of course there is no way of getting in touch with Cad and Nick this summer... well that's the first thing I'm changing as soon as I get back,' before speeding up to join his aunt and uncle who were making there way back to the parking lot.

* * *

Naruto whistled a jaunty tune as he walked back into his apartment, heading straight to the bathroom to wash off the smell of the butcher shop, only stopping to put down a portion of loin from one of the boars he had skinned and quartered. Stepping out of the bathroom, feeling and smelling much cleaner, he saw the envelope that meant only one thing, a letter from Hen-ry! 'I wasn't expecting his response so soon,' the boy thought as he held the envelope carefully hesitant to open it. He stood like that for quite awhile until he remembered the last time he sat like this, worried about the outcome of a letter, so summoning his courage he got down to business and pulled out the letter.

'Wow,' was all Naruto could think as he read the story, 'and I thought I was going to be the only one writing this kind of thing.' Naruto continued to think on the letter, as he fixed his meal, grilling the pork and steaming the rice, before sitting down and beginning to tell his friend it was all going to be all right. It was strange, but the letter actually filled him with a bit of hope about Henry's reply. It reminded him of how his friend had been there for him the last time he was troubled, and proved that his friend still trusted him with his troubles.

His response written, Naruto put the letter aside to take to the Hokage tomorrow when the team went to the tower for another mission, and started to go through his occlumency working on reducing his hand signals down even further.

* * *

This point marks the end of Book 1. I have several ideas of where to take the story from here, and will move on to Book 2 shortly. Also if anyone wants to use this book as a springboard for any of their own attempts, please let me know and I will advertise the story my page so people can see the different threads available to them. I have seen some readers point out that writers on this site have been taking bits of stories from other writers, and how shameful that is, which I find a little odd, considering this is a fanfiction website, so that is basically what we are all doing, and if anyone wants to use any ideas I have, please feel free to go ahead. I know that I feel, and I'm sure many of you do as well, that Naruto has been shorted in the story so far. I plan to make up for this in Book 2 when the Naruto story line really begins.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: nothing written here is owned by me!

NOTE: Book 2, The search for more knowledge has now been posted.


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